FSD BookClub... MARCH 2014: A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare (Book 1)

Great choice. One I've seen a couple times, but have never read.

1.1.93:

"You have her father's love, Demetrius;
Let me have Hermia's. Do you marry him."

A great line and delivered well it always makes me laugh out loud.

The real comedy though of course comes in Scene 2, courtesy of Bottom and the Mechanicals. For. a great Bottom performance (did I really write that?!), Warren Mitchell takes some beating.

>3 Conte_Mosca:

I agree. Beating Bottoms is a constant theatrical challenge.

Act I sets up the framework and action in this play introducing two elements (of three) that are examples of the contrived accepted circumstances of performances at the time. That is, a love conflict originating in tradition (representing values of a higher class) and down-to-earth popular attitudes (mockingly acted) within opposing structures of reality. The third element is the fantasy world of the woods, and the fairyland goings-on of its inhabitants which are introduced in Act II.

Reading and attending the performance of a play are, of course, two different experiences. The setting elected by Shakespeare is ancient Athens, but this is only a formality, for the action has been transplanted often (for instance, a classic BBC production chose a Renaissance background). One interesting overall aspect for non-English readers and audiences is whether the translation of the play is in verse or prose. Another curious detail for comparison purposes is how the names of the theatrical troupe of artisans are rendered.

This is interesting, in trying to do it act by act. It has made me struggle to find something to say about act 1, but I think I found something.

It is obviously just the setup for the rest of the play, but it is a little more than that. There is a kind of conflict between two cultures. First we get the "nobility", with its emphasis on tradition and the hidebound rules of their class. But, put a daughter to death because she won't marry her father's choice of husband?

And then there is the juxtapostion of the underclass, a bunch of tradesmen who hope to entertain the nobility with a story of forbidden love, much like that of Hermia and Lysander, at least to this point, because, Hermia may choose to die rather than marry Demetrius. And, a bunch of tradesmen striving to put on a play: Is this something of Shakespeare trying to train up an acting crew? This was one of his earlier plays.

And then there is Bottom. A weaver. Who wants to play Pyramux and Thisbe and the lion. Prety high ambitions for a weaver. What can it mean?

I don't have much to add concerning Helena's plan to intercept Lysander and Helena' plan to escape. That's for the next act.

> 7

For classical allusions and references in AMND, you may wish to check this document:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/15001

Act II Midsummer, i.e. St. John’s Eve, a magical night as we are going to find out. The scene opens with more love conflicts. In the woods, a world of contrasts and opposites emerges: firstly, the fantasy existence of Titania and Oberon. They are at odds and distanced over a young orphan boy. Titania, exhausted by the discussion with Oberon, goes to sleep. Secondly, on a very real plane, we discover that Demetrius has to contend with the demands from Helena who declares her unrequited love for him. Lysander and Hermia, on their own quest for love and freedom for action, wander about the woods. The two couples are conveniently tired by their efforts and fall asleep. Five sleeping characters are about to realize, upon awakening, that the world has changed radically for them.

Mistaken identities, enchantment, use of herbal potions, vulnerable sleep, supernatural entities (whether gods or spirits) pulling the strings of human beings: the stuff of drama or comedy.

Shakespeare masterfully employs the stage entrances and exits of his characters to weave the embroiled plot needed for the audience’s entertainment and suspense.

I love listening to the changing language in MND. Act 1.1 starts with the usual blank verse until Hermia and Lysander are alone, at which point the mood change is signaled by Hermia's use of rhyme. The use of rhyme continues through the dialogue with Helena (and the clever word play between Hermia and Helena) before finishing the scene with Helena's 26-line soliloquy in rhyming couplets.

1.2 changes the mood again completely with the down-to-earth common prose of the "rude mechanicals" which acts as a nice contrast before we launch into the varied "magical" metre we will be presented with in Act 2 (trochaic trimeter, iambic tetrameter, as well as iambic pentameter).

Best two verses in Act II, end of Scene II:

Hermia
Help me, Lysander, help me! do thy best
To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!

Act III We are set for a comical highlight. Confusion, confrontation and conflict dominate the three scenes. The theatrical troupe begins the rehearsal of the play that is going to be represented before the Duke, his wife, and the nuptial party. Tatiana wakes up at the wrong time and falls in love not with Oberon but with Bottom (sporting a donkey’s head). Oberon and Puck realize what’s gone wrong, but Puck will be enjoying the situation until the end of the act:

Then two at once will woo one,
That must needs be sport alone;
And those things do best please me
That befall preposterously

Puck has to busy himself. Lysander and Helena are at odds, so are Demetrius and Hermia. To complicate things further, Helena and Hermia argue, and Lysander and Demetrius are close to a duel.

Up and down, up and down.
I will lead them up and down:
I am fear’d in field and town
Goblin, lead them up and down

Needless to say, all the goings-on tire the two couples and, predictably and conveniently, they have to rest and fall asleep.

Puck
On the ground
Sleep sound

What do readers think Shakespeare's purpose was for including the performance of a play within a play? Is it because AMND was conceived as a masquerade? Is there some secondary goal intended (social or argumental)? Shakespeare did have a clear dramatic objetive later on in Hamlet when he used this same artifice.

By clear dramatic objective, are you referring to Hamlet's plan for confirming his suspicions about the King as betrayor of Hamlet's father? Or a dramatic effect Shakespeare hopes to invoke in his audience, by nesting a play within the plot?

I suspect you mean the former, but my appreciation of theater generally, and Shakespeare in particular, is rudimentary. I could be missing something, even as it works on me. Certainly your main question about AMND would not have occurred to me, and your proposition that it fits the masquerade theme sounds obvious now that you've stated it, but I'd never have come up with that, either.

ETA fix typos

> 15

As you correctly suspect, I am referring to Hamlet's plan to use the play-within-a-play as a sort of 'lie detector' on his uncle. The way I see the situation in AMND is much lighter. Shakespeare is also making fun of his own work as playwriter and actor.

Am I correct in remembering AMND was written before Hamlet?

I'm thinking that when staging Hamlet, then, a director / company has the option of layering both the "lie detector" aspect of the play-within-a-play, and also the fun & audience ribbing opportunities of AMND. I've never seen a production of Hamlet, I don't think ... excepting perhaps a filmed version. I don't recall if it included any meta-commentary on dramatists and actors and their egos, but it seems very much something Shakespeare would have done. Anyone know of a production that did? Especially curious if it made any allusions to AMND itself.

I do hope you all keep this wonderful Folio book club going so I can join you in the summer when I've finished the all-consuming (for my middle-aged brain) uni course I'm currently on, it's such a great thread, I've just sadly not the time to read alongside you all at the moment :(

>14 drasvola: That's a really good question Antonio. I am not really sure it is any of those things. It is certainly unusual, notwithstanding the later use of a play as a plot device in Hamlet.

In Shakespeare's Festive Comedy, Barber suggested that the play was a developed jig (something that usually followed a play), which Shakespeare had woven into the framework of the play itself rather than as a disconnected afterthought.

It is certainly not a direct reflection of the type of play that a group of workers might really perform. That was definitely the domain of the more educated classes, and one would not have found Bottom, Quince and co. performing Ovidian material (however badly) in Shakespeare's day! I think that is part of the intended comedy.

> 18

Yes, AMND was written before Hamlet. I think the circumstances would indeed be different.

> 20

With hindsight and so many different expert opinions on Shakespeare's work, I suppose many interpretations are valid. I remember the comment from a professor when I suggested that Hamlet had been the subject of child abuse by his uncle... "the text, the text," she said.

>21 drasvola:

Very true, and well said. I guess we will never know with certainty what Shakespeare's true intent was.

Act IV A short act. Fast resolution; no more confusion, everyone is matched with desired partner. Love, tolerance and generosity prevail. But Shakespeare needs a fifth act to end the show. The nuptials are a few hours away and the amateur troupe –hard-handed men that work in Athens-- must perform their play…

Titania

My Oberon! what visions have I seen!
Methought I was enamour'd of an ass

I'm sorry that I haven't managed to contribute to this thread, but I've been working some 15-hour days lately. Not much reading time - maybe I can do better with the next book chosen. At least I hope so - this pace is wearing me out!

Act V Ready? The dramatic climax is over. The action now turns to expressions of joy and merriment. Festivities are in order, and the performance of a play is planned. The irony is that the subject chosen is love defeated by fate in the form of a wall between lovers and the wild attack of a lion. The unfortunate Pyramus and Thisbe enter the realm of sleep (this time sans awakening) by their own hands.

It is to be noted that Hippolyta has in this act the straightest role of anyone in the play. Having been a passive observer most of the time, she now exhibits some common sense with the comment:

This is the silliest stuff that e’er I heard.

Not to be undone by Theseus, her husband-to-be in a short while, when he admonishes the players at the end of their performance:

No epilogue, I pray you; for your play needs no excuse.

Said and done, Puck returns with the customary requests and apologies:

Puck

So, goodnight unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

And the funniest line and retort in this playful game of fantasy, love and dreams:


Theseus

I wonder if the lion be to speak

Demetrius

No wonder, my lord: one may, when many asses do.

There is another aspect of the play proper and the play-within-the-play that seems interesting to note. While in the first framework the fantastical characters are the fairies and company, in the latter the fanciful role is given to three characters who surprisingly are required to speak but who also belong to three different categories, that is, it may be stated that Wall, Moonshine and Lion represent object, energy and beast. They are not invisible characters like Puck, Oberon,Titania and the fairies but, in a sense, symbolic representations of concepts. Shakespeare plays on two levels: he wants to assure his audience (on stage for the nuptial party and in the hall for the public) that the characters are not what they seem to be or portray, cautioning everyone at cross-purposes with hilarious effect. At the same time, the action evolves with the interaction between the players and the Athenian aristocrats. Shakespeare in this way has masterfully mingled and balanced several ideas to convey an integrated sequence of very effective results.