A midsummer night’s dream: Themes

1. A midsummer night’s dream: Themes Mr. MacQueen

2. Types of humour • Malapropism – (The misuse of a word for comic effect) • Slapstick Comedy - (A type of comedy that stresses ridiculousness and horseplay) • Pun - (A play on words that sound the same but have different meanings)

3. Types of humour • Dramatic Irony - (Occurs when the audience knows something about the present situation, or future outcome of the plot, of which at least one of the characters in the play is ignorant). • Verbal Irony - (occurs when the actual meaning is different from the stated meaning) • Burlesque - (the use of ridiculous exaggeration like having royalty or members of the aristocracy falling in love with poor commoners)

4. Love and madness • The madness of romantic love is an important theme of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Indeed, love often causes the person in love to act out of character, or to do things one normally would not do, or to act crazy. In such cases, the wooer is sometimes said to be ‘mad with love.' Characteristically, the mad lover cares neither for the consequences of his actions nor for how his actions may appear to others.

5. Love and madness • Find examples of ‘mad with love’ (act, scene, line) in the following characters: • i) Lysander • ii) Demetrius • iii) Hermia • iv) Titania • v) Helena • vi) Pyramus and Thisbe

6. HELENA: How happy some o'er other some can be! Through Athens I am thought as fair as she. But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so; He will not know what all but he do know: And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes, So I, admiring of his qualities: Things base and vile, folding no quantity, Love can transpose to form and dignity: Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind: Nor hath Love's mind of any judgement taste; Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste: And therefore is Love said to be a child, Because in choice he is so oft beguiled. As waggish boys in game themselves forswear, So the boy Love is perjured every where: For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia'seyne, He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine; And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt, So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt. I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight: Then to the wood will he to-morrow night Pursue her; and for this intelligence If I have thanks, it is a dear expense: But herein mean I to enrich my pain, To have his sight thither and back again. ACT ONE, SCENE ONE, LINES 236-262

7. HIPPOLYTA: 'Tisstrange my Theseus, that these 1830 lovers speak of. THESEUS: More strange than true: I never may believe These antique fables, nor these fairy toys. Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend 1835 More than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, the lover and the poet Are of imagination all compact: One sees more devils than vast hell can hold, That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic, 1840 Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt: The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen 1845 Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. Such tricks hath strong imagination, That if it would but apprehend some joy, It comprehends some bringer of that joy; 1850 Or in the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush supposed a bear!

8. dreaming • What do dreams represent? Who presides over the “dream world”? What is “the power” of dreams? Can dreams have an effect on “reality”? • Explain these examples fully in terms of what they mean and why they are important to the rest of the play. • Oberon talking about “the magic flower” (Act II, Scene I) • Hermia awakening alone in the woods (ACT II, Scene II)Oberon’s Speech (Act III, Scene II, lines 344-375) • Oberon’s Speech (Act IV, Scene I) • Bottom’s Dream (Act IV, Scene I) • Puck’s Monologue (Act V, last speech)

9. PUCK: If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend: if you pardon, we will mend: And, as I am an honest Puck, If we have unearned luck Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue, We will make amends ere long; Else the Puck a liar call; So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends.