A Midsummer Night's Dream: Notes (1)

The original structure of the play

• Like a Blackforest cake: layers of intermingled flavours
• Social levels, each with its different kind of comedy

Layer 1: Theseus and Hippolyta

• A sketch of a plot? Does anything happen? [videos]
• Hippolyta is wooed with a sword: "tamed"? (1.1.16)
• Court politics and the amazon queen

Layer 2: the Lovers

• The complication: Egeus as senex
• The duty owed to parents, and the responsibilities of both child and parent
• The path of true love and the perils of haste (compare Romeo and Juliet). 1.1.134.
• The parallels with Roman comedy, and the differences -- note that the rivals for Hermia's love are equivalent in birth (1.1.99)
• The women
  • Physically different in appearance? (3.2.260 ff)
  • Personalities? (3.2.299 and elsewhere)
  • Helena's betrayal (1.1.226 ff) [videos]
• The men: are they differentiated?
  • Reason and rationalization in love: Lysander on Helena (2.2.117 ff)
• The love-juice
  • Venus and Diana (2.1.148 ff; 4.1.72-3)
  • Hermia's dream/nightmare within the dream (2.2.150 ff) and its origins
• The resolution
  • Puck and the juice: Demetrius remains "juiced" (3.2.448 ff) [videos]
  • The discovery of the lovers: Theseus overrules Egeus (4.1.138 ff) [videos]
  • And marriage

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This page last updated on 18 September 2002. © Michael Best, 2002.