A Midsummer Night’s Dream Wrap Up Post

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A Midsummer Nights Dream, Reading Challenge, William Shakespeare

This is the sixth and last discussion on A Midsummer Night’s Dream as part of the Reading Shakespeare A Play A Month Reading Challenge hosted by Risa of Breadcrumb Reads.

Click here to read the first discussion post.
Click here to read the second discussion post.

Click here to read the third discussion post.

Click here to read the fourth discussion post.

Click here to read the fifth discussion post

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This post concerns my final thoughts on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare.

With regards to Oberon, I found it nice that he pitied Helena for chasing and being ignored by Demetrius but to intervene? Not a good idea.  I also found it quite amusing that after getting what he wanted (the Indian boy) he was ready to make amends with his wife Titania and lift up the spell put on her.

Oberon’s wife, Titania, is a perfect example of what one is willing to give up in the name of love.  Well, she was under a spell but still in love nonetheless.  That and she was practically badgered while trying to find a gift for Bottom.

Hermia was a surprise for me.  I thought she was going to be sweet all through out  but she can really stand up for what she wants as well.

I can’t say much about Lysander really aside from that night in the forest where he somewhat insinuated that he sleep with Hermia.

Demetrius on the other hand, I feel, is the embodiment of a modern day womanizer. :p It always felt wrong that he just left Helena to pursue Hermia.  Well, by rights, he could pursue anyone he wants but a close friend of the person you were once interested in just seemed wrong to me.

Helena is the most sorry character in this play.  I feel sorry for her despite getting Demetrius in the end because I don’t think he was ever relieved from the spell that was put on him.  Well, if the fairies say that another flower needs to undo the deed then I’d reckon that he was still under the influence of the first flower.  However, I also think that it was quite unnecessary for Helena to chase after a guy who has clearly stated that he does not want her.  It bordered on stalkerish but she did get her man.

Who can blame Puck for his mistake? He was just told to put the flower on the eyelids of an Athenian man and it was just unfortunate that the Athenian man happened to be the wrong one. His mistake started all the craziness that followed.  That and turning Bottom’s head into that of an ass.

The laborers are one funny bunch.  Well, Bottom did most of the talking for them anyway.  It was unfortunate about the play “Pyramus and Thisbe” that they had to put up for the king and queen and the four lovers though.

I can’t say anything much about Theseus, Egeus, and Hippolyta.  Egeus is a harsh father and Theseus and Hippolyta are just there.  I actually feel sorry for Hippolyta as she does not seem to do much.  When she is in a scene she is quiet and the only time she had a lot to say was towards the end of the play.  At least Theseus gets to perform some of his duties.

Overall, it was a fun play.  The sentiments of love in the play are still echoed today. In Lysander’s words: “The course of true love never did run smooth.“

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Discussion Post #5

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A Midsummer Nights Dream, Reading Challenge, William Shakespeare

This is the fifth of six posts on A Midsummer Night’s Dream as part of the Reading Shakespeare A Play A Month Reading Challenge hosted by Risa of Breadcrumb Reads.

Click here to read the first discussion post.
Click here to read the second discussion post.

Click here to read the third discussion post.

Click here to read the fourth discussion post.

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We are finally here at the last act of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  I actually just made this post so that there will be a balance of posts on the play as for the next play, there would be only one and will be be about the entire play and not a post after every Act.

In this Act, we get to see the play that the laborers had rehearsed.  Before that, Theseus and Hippolyta discuss the events that the four young lovers related to them about what happened to them in the forests.   Theseus dismisses it as a dream.

The play out on by the laborers turn out to be comical and while the laborers are performing the play, we also get to hear the comments from the nobles, which weren’t exactly complimentary.

After the play, Oberon and Titania come to bless the marriage of the three couples. Puck is left behind to deliver his message to the audience and think of what has happened as a dream.

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended:
That you have but slumbered 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.

This act further reiterates the theme of dreams.  Theseus dismisses the story of the four lovers as a dream and Puck addresses the audience no less that what they have witnessed was actually just a dream.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Discussion Post #4

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A Midsummer Nights Dream, Reading Challenge, William Shakespeare

This is the fourth of six posts on A Midsummer Night’s Dream as part of the Reading Shakespeare A Play A Month Reading Challenge hosted by Risa of Breadcrumb Reads.

Click here to read the first discussion post.
Click here to read the second discussion post.

Click here to read the third discussion post.

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While Act III was rather long, this one is rather short.

Act IV opens with Titania fawning over her lover.  Bottom is still not aware of his transformation and seems to have also developed a taste for hay and oats.  Oberon, in the meantime, has decided that it is time to end Titania’s spell because he has already got what he wanted from her.

Oberon says that he met Titania earlier while she was trying to find presents for her lover and badgered her for the boy which she relinquished to him without question.  Funny the things we would gladly give up when we are in love.

Bottom decides that he has to sleep and Titania sleeps as well.  And here signals the role of sleep in the resolution of Titania being in love with an ass.  When she wakes, she reconciles with Oberon and they dance and play music so the lovers would continue to sleep.  It is also curious to note that they seem to love the night as when Puck announced that he hears the morning lark, Oberon says that they move to a place where it is till night.

Theseus, Hippolyta, and Egeus and others walk through the woods after celebrating May Day and find the sleeping lovers.  They are woken and are confused by the events that have transpired.  Lysander admits that he and Hermia were planning to run away which causes Egeus to get mad but Theseus intervenes and decides that all three couples should get married on the same day.

I actually found this rather sad since it was only Lysander who was restored to his love for Hermia.  Demtrius’ love for Helena was fulfilled through the use of magic.

With regards to Bottom, he wakes up and like the lovers, thinks it but a dream.  He manages to find his friends and instructs them to meet him at the palace as they are to perform their play.  I can’t imagine what would happen since they never even got anything right during their rehearsal.

This were the events that happened in Act IV.  It was a rather peaceful act.  Lysander and Demetrius don’t seem to be mad at each other anymore and so are Hermia and Helena.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Discussion Post #3

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A Midsummer Nights Dream, Reading Challenge, William Shakespeare

This is the third of six posts on A Midsummer Night’s Dream as part of the Reading Shakespeare A Play A Month Reading Challenge hosted by Risa of Breadcrumb Reads.

Click here to read the first discussion post.
Click here to read the second discussion post.

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My, this was longer than the rest of the previous acts.  In Act III Scene I, we see the laborers practice their play in the woods and close to where Titania is sleeping.  In this scene with the laborers, Bottom suggests a couple of really silly things for the play.  With regards to his issue that the audience might misconstrue Pyramus killing himself with a sword as real, he requests a prologue to be written that he is NOT in fact killing himself for real and that he is Nick Bottom and not Pyramus.  Where in the world can you find a play like that?

Before, I head on to the “resolution” Bottom had for the lion, I just wanted to say something about Snout and Starveling. These two were given parts that they had no time to contest and I brought up that issue for the discussion on Act I and I also wondered how that would play out in the further part of the play.  Well, let me just say that Snout and Starveling (at this point) don’t do much at all.  Snout brings up that he is quite concerned about the lion when it was already said that Snug would just act like a lion.  Starveling just echoes Snout’s concerns.  By the way, Snug is pretty quiet in this Act.

Anyway, about the issue of the lion.  Bottom suggests that Snug declare who he is and that he is not a real lion before performing his role as a lion.

Another issue they had is creating an atmosphere that would suggest that it is night because Pyramus and Thisbe meet by moonlight.  Quince crazily suggests that sticks and a lantern would do the trick.  In this particular scene, I can’t help but notice certain repetitions like “A calendar, a calendar!” and “Look up moonshine, look up moonshine!” Probably doesn’t mean anything but a rhetorical device but just though I’d mention it.

The last issue they discussed was the wall since Pyramus and Thisbe talk through a crack in the wall.  Bottom comes up with a very crazy suggestion to have someone play the Wall and cover him with plaster then he would hold his fingers up in a V position then the lovers would talk through the space.  How odd would that look?

Another thing to notice is the consistent mistakes each of the rehearsing laborers make.  Bottom says “odious” instead of “odors” and Flute says “Ninny’s grave” instead of “Ninus’ grave.“

Without their knowledge, Puck was seeing the entire thing.  After Bottom rehearsed his part, he exits and while waiting for his next cue, Puck transforms his head into that of an ass.  When his friends see what has emerged, they run away. Bottom doesn’t understand why and keeps calling them asses.  Bottom decides to sing and this wakes Titania.

Given that the nectar of the flower will make Titania fall in love with the first thing she sees, she immediately falls for Bottom.  Bottom doesn’t seem to mind that attention either.  Titania then calls on her fairies to attend to Bottom and take him to her sleeping area.  On a side note, I have been re-reading A Game of Thrones and there were three servants who repeat what the other says (“It is known“) and I couldn’t hep but compare it here (“Hail mortal!”, “Hail,” “Hail,” “Hail”).  I don’t know about you but I also found this line uttered by Titania to be particularly funny because of Bottom’s current state: “So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape.“

I also found her ending dialogue as something of a reflection on the state of the lovers as the men are pursuing [Lysander pursues Helena and Demetrius is pursuing Hermia] yet nothing is ever reciprocated:

The moon, methinks, looks with a wat’ry eye,
And when she weeps, weeps every little flower,
Lamenting some enforced chastity.

Next we see Oberon and Puck discussing what they have done.  Puck declares to Oberon, “Titania waked and straight away loved an ass.”  I found that really hilarious.

They then decide to watch Demetrius and Hermia argue and Oberon finds out that Puck has made a mistake when he says that Demetrius is not the man he dropped the nectar on.  Oberon declares that Puck’s mistake has caused “Some true-love turned, and not a false turned true.”  Demetrius, at this point, decides to sleep as Hermia has left him.  Oberon instructs Puck to find Helena and bring her here while he drops the nectar on Demetrius’ eyes so when he wakes and sees Helena, he would fall in love with her.

Lysander and Helena arrive and they Helena keeps pushing him away but he is relentless.  Demetrius wakes up and declares his love for Helena.  Poor Helena thinks it is all a joke.  Tensions arise when Hermia arrives and we find out that she is really feisty.  Accusations are thrown and pledges of love are made.  In those dialogues, we find out that Hermia is short and dark while Helena is rather tall.  All the bickering ends when Demetrius and Lysander decide to fight elsewhere.

Oberon chastises Puck for his mistake and orders him to cause confusion between the two.  Probably exhausted from their confusion, both fall asleep.  Hermia and Helena also chance upon the same spot and both also fall asleep.  Puck applies another type of flower to Lysander so his love for Hermia will be restored when he wakes.

Those are the events that have transpired for this act.  I have noticed that sleep plays an important role here.  It seems that sleep here acts as a solution to the lovers quarrel.  While in the previous acts, sleep played a part in the ruckus.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Discussion Post #2

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A Midsummer Nights Dream, Reading Challenge, William Shakespeare

This is the second of six posts on A Midsummer Night’s Dream as part of the Reading Shakespeare A Play A Month Reading Challenge hosted by Risa of Breadcrumb Reads.

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Act II has been by far my favorite.  I loved the dialogues in this Act.  In this Act, we get to meet Oberon and Titania, the King and Queen of the Fairies.  We also get to meet the mischievous Robin Goodfellow a.k.a. “Puck.”  I find his name rather intriguing as he is called Goodfellow but “good” is not entirely what he does! And we also get to see the lovers out in the wood.

Oberon and Titania bicker like an old married couple.  Well they are. But their fight is rather childish because it is over a young little Indian boy. The mother of the Indian boy was a devotee of Titania and she took it upon herself to look after the boy following the after his mother passed.  Now, Oberon wants him as his page and Titania won’t allow it.  And this has caused problems in their marriage with Titania refusing to share his bed.  Now, I don’t get why Titania couldn’t let Oberon “borrow” the child and since they are a married couple, she would still see the child and attend to his welfare.  But, what do I know? This is a fantasy.

Oberon declares revenge and instructs Puck to retrieve a flower whose juices when applied to the eyelids of a sleeping person would cause that person to fall in love with the first creature they see.  While Puck goes searching for the flower, Demetrius enters the wood searching for Hermia and Lysander with Helena following after him like a lost puppy.

I know that I’m probably supposed to take Helena’s declarations of love to be serious but I found her relentless pursuit of Demetrius through the woods to be rather comical.  Take this dialogue between the two:

Demetrius
     Do I entice you? Do I speak you fair?
     Or rather do I not in plainest truth
     Tell you I do not, nor I cannot love you?

Helena
     And even for that do I love you the more.
     I am your spaniel, and, Demetrius,
     The more you beat me I will fawn on you.
     Use me but as your spaniel: spurn me, strike me,
     Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave
     (Unworthy as I am ) to follow you.
     What worser place can I beg in your love
     (And yet a place of high respect with me)
     Than to be used as you use your dog?

Demetrius
     Tempt me not too much the hatred of my spirit,
     For I am sick when I look on thee.

Helena
     And I am sick when I look not on you.

I just don’t know how much pain this woman (Helena) could take.  She is very relentless.  You could put up a tally board of how many times Demetrius has insulted her and they would still come up a tie because for every insult, she has a corresponding rebuttal.

But despite my dislike of Helena’s apparent lack of self-respect, I still found the following dialogue to be rather cute (in my country, words like these are the staple of romantic movies) :

Helena
     For you, in my respect, are all the world.
     Then, how can it be said I am alone
     When all the world is here to look on me?

Anyway, Helena continues to chase after this awful man and all the while Oberon has heard the entire thing.  When Puck arrives, he instructs him to drop the nectar on Demetrius and describes him as a man with “Athenian garments.”  I don’t know if Shakespeare intended it but Helena did call Demetrius by his name during their “conversation” in the woods and I wonder why Oberon did not pick it up.  Well, what fun would that be if he did pick it up?

The scene changes to one with Titania and her fairies.  She instructs her fairies to sing her to sleep and I find the song they sung rather amusing, especially the lines: “Never harm, Nor spell nor charm.”  Because we all know that Oberon intends to inflict “harm” by dropping nectar into Titania’s eyelids and wishing her to “wake when something vile is near.”

The scene we see next is of the two lovers, Lysander and Hermia running away (as they agreed upon in Act I).  Lysander is and lost suggests they rest and somewhat suggests that they lie together but when Hermia protests, he segues into an oration of how he was misunderstood.  Hermia’s modesty prevails and they both sleep apart from each other.  I don’t know if he really meant to sleep with Hermia because if that was the case then he is no different than Demetrius whose claims of love seem to be of lust.

Since the description given by Oberon to Puck of Demetrius was an “Athenian man” and Lysander being the only Athenian man that Puck sees, drops nectar into his eyelids.  And the very unfortunate Helena, who comes by Lysander through her relentless pursuit of Demetrius through the wood, thinking Lysander to be dead tries to wake him and much to her surprise, declares his love for her.  Thinking that she is being fooled, leaves …. and Lysander follows her.

Now, Hermia is awakened by a dream of a serpent eating her heart while Lysander just smiles and watches.  I think that this is a foreshadowing of the things to come.  Since we know that Lysander is now pursuing Helena, not because he loves her, but because of the deceit of magic. She wakes up begging for help from Lysander and since she couldn’t find him because he is out chasing poor unfortunate Helena, she decides to find him.

And that sums up my post on Act II of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Discussion Post #1

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A Midsummer Nights Dream, Reading Challenges, William Shakespeare

This is the first of six posts on A Midsummer Night’s Dream as part of the Reading Shakespeare A Play A Month Reading Challenge hosted by Risa of Breadcrumb Reads.

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This post mainly concerns Act I of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare.  Act I is divided into two scenes, the first introduces us to the lovers: Hermia, Lysander, Helena, and Demetrius; Theseus and Hippolyta who are set to be married; and the second scene introduces us to the band of laborers: Peter Quince, Nick Bottom, Snug, Tom Snout, Francis Flute, and Robin Starvelling who are putting on a play for the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta.

Since Theseus sounded awfully familiar to me, I did a quick Google search and found that he was in Greek mythology, the founder-king of Athens.  And that he is in fact somewhat connected to Hippolyta, whom he kidnapped and took for his wife.  I’ve also noticed several other references to mythology in this play.

In this play, Theseus is a duke of Athens who wooed Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, with his sword and won her love by injuring her.  But despite this, Hippolyta does not seem bothered at all.  And she’s only spoken once so far.

Egeus then enters bringing along his daughter Hermia and her two suitors, Lysander and Demetrius.  Egeus has come to Theseus to complain about Hermia because she refuses to marry Demetrius, who Egeus has chosen for her, and is instead in love with Lysander.  Egeus asks Theseus that he may be able to exercise his right as a father according to law to force her to marry Demetrius or have her killed (Ouch! Harsh).

To comment on that, I think its rather harsh to force somebody to love another.  And in the case of Egeus, to bear the thought of having his daughter killed for not following his will.  As to why he chooses Demetrius over Lysander is not made clear.  For I, personally, dislike Demetrius because of his lack of tact when he moved from one girl to the other (and friends at that) and still insisted on wooing a girl who has made it clear that she does not want him.  Couldn’t he have chosen another girl and why should it be the closest friend of the person he was once wooing?

Anyway, enough of the Demetrius rant.  Back to the play, Theseus gives Hermia two choices: to either become a nun (serving Diana/Phoebe the goddess of the hunt, the moon, and chastity) or face death.  Hermia chooses death as she would rather die than marry a man that she does not love.  Theseus then tells her to think about it and decide on his and Hippolyta’s wedding day.

Lysander then exclaiming “For aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth” decides that he and Hermia should elope and get married where they are not bound by the Athens law.  Hermia immediately agrees.  I couldn’t blame her here despite the idea being rather foolish because she was tasked to choose between death and becoming a nun.

At this point, we meet Hermia’s friend Helena who does nothing but list the ways in which Hermia is better than her: “Your eyes are lodestars, and your tongue’s sweet air | More tunable than lark to shepherd’s ear” then proceeds to wish to have what Hermia has so that Demetrius may want her again.  Hermia and Lysander foolishly tell her of their plans to elope.  Helena, who suddenly gets the “brilliant” idea to tell Demetrius so that he may follow them into the woods in hopes that she might win back his love.

I don’t know how I should feel about Helena.  I pity her for having her heart broken yet find her obsession of wanting to win back the person who broke her heart to be rather insane.  If she lived in this day and age, there’s a thing called “moving on.”

That was the entirety of Act I Scene I.  Act I Scene II deals with the laborers planning to rehearse a play called “A Very Tragic Comedy About the Horrible Deaths of Pyramus and Thisbe” to present during the marriage of Theseus to Hippolyta.  In here we meet

• the very meddlesome Bottom who gets to play Pyramus but would rather play every possible character in the play,
• their “leader” Quince who will play Thisbe’s father,
• the whiner Flute who gets to play the female part of Thisbe then goes on to complain that he can’t because he has a beard coming,
• the self-proclaimed slow learner Snout who gets to play a lion and do nothing but roar,
• and Starvelling and Snug who didn’t get to meddle nor complain and were given the roles of Thisbe’s mother and Pyramus’ father respectively and both without protest

That was the entirety of Act I Scene II as well.  It was about Quince assigning the roles that each of the laborers will play with additional meddling from Bottom.

Now, I also looked up Pyramus and Thisbe and it turns out that their tale is told in The Metamorphoses, by Ovid.  Their story is very much like Romeo and Juliet where there is forbidden love and suicide.

2012 Reading Shakespeare a Play a Month

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Reading Challenge, Shakespeare, William Shakespeare

I’ve always wanted to read other works by Shakespeare other than those that I have read in high school or those movie adaptations I have watched.  Thus the reason for joining this challenge hosted by Risa of Breadcrumb Reads.  However, the challenge is hosted at Studying Literature, a site created especially for this challenge.

I have seen the reading list for the entire list and I am very excited that A Midsummer Night’s Dream was chosen as the play for January 2012.  :)  I’ve never read a history play by Shakespeare, so I’m looking forward to finally reading one.

I might also join the Shakespeare Reading Month in January hosted at A Literary Odyssey.  This will be the chance I get to read works that are not on the list for this challenge.

Looking forward to reading a lot of Shakespeare in 2012.