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Presentation for Shakespeare Set Free Institute, St. Louis, August 2, 2012
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The Three Worlds of A Midsummer Night’s
Dream
Jennifer R. [email protected]
Assistant ProfessorDepartment of EnglishSaint Louis University
Three “Worlds”: Interlocking Spheres of Action and their
Sources
Athens: Classical Mythology
Faerie Forest: Folklore and Elizabethan Festive Culture
“Rude Mechanicals”: Working Classes of Shakespeare’s England – Artisans and Artists
First World: Athens
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Politics
Law
Marriage
Ruling Class
Theseus, Hippolyta, Egeus
Athenian Lovers
Hermia, Demetrius, Lysander, Helena
Theseus
The Deeds of TheseusFrom: Athens, GreeceDate: about
440-430 BCBritish Museum
Theseus, Duke of Athens, Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romanes,
1579. British Library, C.38.k.24, p.1
Theseus
Theseus and the Minotaur(Detail)
Amazonomachy: Theseus and the Amazons
Hippolyte and Deinomache (Vase painting)
Hippolyta and the Amazons
Amazonomachy – Attic – ca. 420 BC New York -
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Hippolyte. Promptuarii Iconum Insigniorum. 1553.
Queen Elizabeth as Amazon
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Facsimile of the 1623 First Folio
Internet Shakespeare Editions, University of
Victoria (Canada), 2010.
http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca
/
A Midsummer Night's Dream (First Folio, 1623)
1.1.1-11
Enter Theseus, Hippolita, with others.
Theseus. NOW faire Hippolita, our nuptiall houre
Drawes on apace: foure happy daies bring in
Another Moon: but oh, me thinkes, how slow
This old Moon wanes; She lingers my desires
Like to a Step-dame, or a Dowager,
Long withering out a yong mans reuennew.
Hip. Foure daies wil quickly steep the-selues in nights
Foure nights wil quickly dreame away the time:
And then the Moone, like to a siluer bow,
Now bent in heauen, shal behold the night
Of our solemnities.
A Midsummer Night's Dream (First Folio, 1623)
1.1.20-25
Theseus. Hippolita, I woo'd thee with my sword,
And wonne thy loue, doing thee iniuries:
But I will wed thee in another key,
With pompe, with triumph, and with reuelling.
Second World:
Faerie Forest
Traditional English Culture (Folklore and Festivity)
“Green World”: Crossing between natural world and
supernatural realm
Echoes Athens but also offers different perspective on it
Titania, Oberon, Puck
A Midsummer Night's Dream
(First Folio, 1623)2.1.101-110
Titania. The nine mens Morris is fild vp with mud,
And the queint Mazes in the wanton greene,
For lacke of tread are vndistinguishable.
The humane mortals want their winter heere,
No night is now with hymne or caroll blest;
Therefore the Moone (the gouernesse of floods)
Pale in her anger, washes all the aire;
That Rheumaticke diseases doe abound.
And through this distemperature, we see
The seasons alter …
Third World: “Rude Mechanicals”
World of Art (Artisans and Artists)
Working Class
Metatheatre
Bottom, Quince, Flute, Snout, Snug, Starveling
The Mechanicals in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Old Vic Theatre, London, 1937
Bottom
“Bless thee Bottom, bless thee! Thou art translated.”
Illustration by Arthur Rackham (1908)
Pyramus and Thisbe
Act FiveSource: Ovid, Metamorphoses
Plot similar to Romeo and Juliet, but also the Midsummer that might-have-been if the comic impulse had not won out.
The End
Questions?