Transcript a midsummer night`s dream - 4Bclasse2-0

A MIDSUMMER
NIGHT’S DREAM
William Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night’s Dream was written by
William Shakespeare in approximately
1595.
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a romantic
comedy which portrays the adventures of
four young Athenian lovers and a group of
amateur actors in a moonlit forest, and
their interactions with the fairies who
inhabit it.
Comedy - in simple terms means that the
play will end happily
Romantic comedy is usually based on a
mix-up in events or identities. Shakespeare’s
comedies often move towards tragedies (a
death or lack of of resolution) but are
resolved in the nick of time.
Comedy – despair to happiness
Tragedy – happiness to despair
Shakespeare’s comedies often end with a
wedding.
THE PLOT
• The comedy presents three
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interconnecting plots, connecting by the
wedding between Theseus, duke of
Athens, and Hippolyta, queen of
Amazons.
Hermia loves Lysander and he loves her.
At the same time Helena, Hermia's friend,
loves Demetrius but he doesn't love her
but Hermia.
Hermia's father wants his daughter marry
Demetrius; if Hermia disobeys her father,
she must become a nun for the rest of her
life.
Hermia and Lysander escape in the wood
where they will be able to marry secretly.
In the same time Demetrius is informed
of Hermia and Lysander's escape and he
follows them, so Helena follows him.
Meantime, in the wood, six men of Athens
meet in secret to rehearse a paly for the
duke's wedding. It was the most lamentable
commedy and most cruel death of
Pyramus and Thisbe. The protagonist in
Nick Bottom.
• Meanwhile, Oberon, king of the elves, and his wife Titania queen of the fairies,
come in the same forest to participate in the upcoming wedding. Oberon wants to
use the Indian servant of Titania to make him his knight, but Titania does not
want , and he squeezes the juice on the eyes of the crimson flower of Cupid, who
falls in love with the first person you see when you wake up.
• Oberon asks Puck to help him. Also Oberon, after seeing Demetrius and Helena
lost in the wood, orders Puck to squeeze the magic juice on Demetrius' eyes, so
he'll fall in love with Helena. But by mistake Puck squeezes the juice on Lysander's
eyes who when he wakes up, sees Helena and falls in love with her.
• But Puck transforms Bottom's head into a donkey's one.. Titania falls in love with
Bottom, in its wake, because of the potion's effects.
• Oberon obtains the indian child and then Puck brings everything back to normal:
Bottom has his human head and the four young lovers are two couples, Demetrius
with Helena and Lysander with Hermia, after a magic fog.
• Theseus finds them in the wood the next day. After Bottom's returns, at the
wedding the craftmen play the comedy.
• At the end of the story, Puck suggests to the audience that what they just
experienced might be nothing but a dream!
Video
Characters
THE LOVERS
• Theseus
• The Duke of Athens, who is admired by the people. He is a noble warrior; after defeating Hippolyta, the
queen of the Amazons, he decides to marry her. Their wedding is to take place in four days.
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Hippolyta
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Lysander
The queen of the Amazons. She was defeated by Theseus and is now betrothed to him.
Hermia
The daughter of Egeus who is in love with Lysander. She refuses to marry Demetrius, the youth chosen
by her father; as a result, she faces the death penalty, per an ancient Athenian law.
The Athenian youth who is in love with and marries Hermia.
Demetrius
The man chosen by Egeus to marry his daughter, Hermia. He had been in love with Helena, but has now
shifted his attention to Hermia. In the end gives up his claim on Hermia and marries Helena.
• Helena
• Hermia's friend, who was once loved by Demetrius. In spite of his desertion of her, she continues to
love him and is married to him at the end of the play.
• Egeus
• The father of Hermia. He is an obstinate old man who insists that his daughter should either marry
Demetrius or face death. He finally relents and allows Hermia to marry Lysander.
THE FAIRIES
• Oberon
• The King of the fairies. In his attempt to teach
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Titania a lesson, he causes the confusion that
contributes a great deal to the dramatic action
of the play.
Titania
The fairy queen who has quarreled with
Oberon over a changeling boy. She is put
under a magic spell by Oberon and falls in love
with Nick Bottom.
Puck or Robin Good Fellow
Oberon's attendant and a mischievous spirit
who is given to pranks.
Peace Blossom, Cobweb, Moth,
Mustardseed
The fairies that attend Titania.
THE ACTORS
• Nick Bottom
• A weaver by profession. He is harmlessly
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conceited and believes that he could play all
roles in any drama. It is rather ironic that he is
made to wear an ass's head during the play.
In the interlude presented on the wedding of
Theseus and Hippolyta, he plays Pyramus.
Peter Quince
A carpenter who organizes the interlude and
reads its prologue.
Francis Flute
A bellows mender who plays Thisbe in the
interlude.
Tom Snout
A tinker who is the wall in the interlude.
Snug
A joiner who is the lion in the interlude.
Starveling
A tailor who plays Moonshine in the interlude.
SETTING
• The action is first set in
Medieval Athens, where
Theseus is referred to by the
medieval title of "Duke" and
not as King. His forthcoming
marriage with Hippolyta sets
the merry mood of the play.
Later the action shifts to the
woods nearby Athens, which is
inhabited by fairies and their
King Oberon and Queen
Titania. It is an appropriate
setting for a play where fairies
and mortals jostle with each
other like in a dream.
THEMES
• The love
• Art and Culture
• Transformation
• Gender
• Version of reality
• Supernatural
THE LOVE
• A Midsummer Night's Dream explores the
nature of romantic love. The pursuit of love has
the capacity to make us irrational and foolish. In
the play, magic love juice causes characters to fall
erratically in and out of love as they chase each
other around the woods, where a Fairy Queen
literally falls in love with a jackass. By literalizing
the familiar cliché that "the course of true love
never did run smooth," Shakespeare suggests
that love really is an obstacle course that turns us
all into madmen.
ART AND CULTURE
• A group of Athenian craftsmen practice a
play they hope to stage at Theseus wedding
celebration. The play is Pyramus and Thisbe
where the craftsmen comically bumble their
way through what's supposed to be a classic
tragedy. By focusing so much attention on
this play-within-the-play, Shakespeare has
ample time to reflect on his own art and to
ask the following questions: What is it that
makes good theater? Can anyone be an
actor? What kind of person is an ideal
audience member? Can uneducated
commoners appreciate art?
• The performance of Pyramus and Thisbe
functions as a parody of bad theater and
reminds us that being a stage actor is craft
that requires intellect and its own set of
skills.
TRANSFORMATION
• Transformation is a very big
feature in this play because one of
Shakespeare's main literary sources
is Ovid's Metamorphoses. In the
third act of A Midsummer's Night
Dream, Puck uses magic to turn
Bottom's head into that of an ass.
This is the most obvious example
of transformation but in the play,
characters undergo physical and
emotional changes – they fall in
and out of love and change their
minds about their friendships and
the world in which they live. The
natural world of the play is also
subject to transformation – night
turns into day, darkness turns to
light, the moon waxes and wanes.
Chagall- A middsumer night’s dream
GENDER
• A Midsummer Night's Dream dramatizes gender tensions
that born from complicated familial and romantic
relationships. When the play opens, a young woman fights
her father to choose her own man, a duke is set to marry a
woman he recently conquered in battle, and the King and
Queen of Fairies are at war with each other, enacting a
battle of the sexes so intense that it upset the natural
world. Throughout the play, Shakespeare also questions
some stereotypes about traditional gender roles. While
men are usually aggressive and women are passive and
docile, A Midsummer Night's Dream shows us that this
isn't always true.
VERISION OF REALITY
• Dreams serve as a way to
explain plot holes or add
mystery. In Lysander's
book, if you don't have to
fight for it, it isn't true
love. Puck sees the
mortal world as full of
fools, and Theseus is
certain fairies aren't real.
Each man envisions his
reality according to his
circumstances.
SUPERNATURAL
• In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare has
created a fantastical world of fairies and magic. The
fairies and their magic are the engine of the plot:
Oberon's love juice , Puck's mistakes with
transformation of Bottom's head into an ass's head ,
and Puck's magic fog. And in the face of this magic,
mortal dilemmas such as the laws of Athens fall away.
SOURCE
• http://pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/p
mMidsummer03.asp (Character and setting)
• http://www.shmoop.com/midsummer-nightsdream/themes.html (Themes)
Colombo Erika
Fiocco Antonio
Spedaliere Giada
Travaglini Andrea
Vietri Michele