A Midnight Summers Dream Flashcards

1
Q

A Midsummer Night’s Dream General Info

A
  • Written 1595 (around same time of Romeo and Juliet, both use Pyramus and This be as source)
  • also have similar thematics of marriage and relationships
  • Tragic subject wiht comic spin
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2
Q

Ovid’s Metamorphoses (MND)

A
  • Inter woven tales in the form of an epic (typically containing some “change”/metamorphosis
  • Written by Ovid during reign of Augustus
  • Widely read during Shakespeare’s time
  • Ideas of change similar in this play
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3
Q

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Play formatting

A
  • Three sets of characters, three sets of lovers and two contrasting settings
    -Noble Athenians, Rude Mechanicals, Fairies
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4
Q

MND Themes

A
  • Examines ideas of love, marriage and duty
  • Marrying for Love (Forest) vs Marrying for Duty (Athens)
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5
Q

MND Setting Function (Green world)

A
  • Green world of the forest contrasts the high order of the city (natural vs civilized worlds)
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6
Q

MND Pastoral Tradition and Setting Thematics

A
  • idealization of simple/ rural life vs complex and corrupt world of the court
  • Forest associated with passion, liberty, magic, night
  • Athenian court with reason, law and duty, day
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7
Q

Forest Setting

A
  • Home to the fairies, to mirror Athens (Oberon and Titania vs Theseus and Hypolith)
  • Disordered and conflict over the changling child (values vs submission)
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8
Q

Titania and Oberon Conflict

A
  • Marriage putting on strain on female friendships
  • Oberon pranks as punishment, to get control of her once again
  • degrading Titania through Bottom (lower class and animal like)
  • reinforcing tradition values of sexuality, gender relations and class hierarchies
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9
Q

Elizabeth 1 (MND)

A
  • Mythologized as Fairy Queen
  • “Married” to subjects
  • Titania reflection?
  • idea of ambivalence about women in power
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10
Q

Order and Authority (characters)

A
  • Noble Athenians contrasted to rustic tradesmen
  • also seen through their language, less educated characters making Malapropisms
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11
Q

Malapropism

A

the mistaken use of a word for another that it resembles (familiar sounding), comic effect

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12
Q

Audience Contrast (IRL)

A
  • diversity of noble and common also seen in audience (groundings vs balconies)
  • audiences could see comic versions of themselves
  • positioning of a monarch (watch the monarch watch)
  • Athenians distracted by bad acting: Elizabethana audiences similarly noisy and disruptive
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13
Q

Theatre’s purpose (MND Mechanics)

A
  • drawing lessons from the tragic experiences of those on stage
  • Mechanics enact process of creating and preforming (badly)
  • viewers asked to reflect upon their own interpretive role
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14
Q

Metathreatre

A

A technique or set of strategies that foregrounds the play’s own theatricality, calling attention to the work of actors/ the interpretive role of the audience
- used to reflect upon aspects of Shakespeare’s theatre

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15
Q

“Bad” Theatre

A
  • Mechanics make tragic play into comedy (literary metamorphosis), Shakespeare does the same more skillfully
  • Mismatch of language and meter (shorter ballad 4-6 syllable lines)
  • stepping out of character, (lion and moon talking as well)
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16
Q

Groundlings

A
  • area in front of the stage for poor people to pay to watch
17
Q

Mechanicals VS Shakespeare as playwrites (epilogue)

A
  • Mechanicals struggle with the conventions of drama
  • good plays need no apologies, but maybe bad ones do (Mechanicals are shut down, Shakespeares epilogue happens right after)
18
Q

Play within the play (MND)

A
  • Shakespeare can comment on the role of the theatre/ imagination
  • plays as craft
  • Dramatic irony: did the Athenians get it?