A Midsummer Night’s Dream #1

The Plan• Self-reflexivity (self-reflexive = the play talks about itself as a play; note

plays-within-plays-within-plays in MSND; ‘self-reflexive’ is a key term)• Key facts• Genre: pastoral and comedy (other key terms for this week)• Comedy as NOT tragedy (binary opposites: another key term)• Problematic genre: something’s wrong in both ‘real’ and fairy worlds• The cause: Oberon and Titania’s quarrel (‘Chain of Being’: another key

term)• Violence: a) Tiffs, humphs, and fights (caesura: another key term)b) ‘Assification’ of Bottom• Pyramus and Thisbe and the court masque• Happy ending? (dream or nightmare?)

Self-reflexive: How many plays?

• Play #1 = Organising the revels to celebrate the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta

• Play #2 = Oberon and Titania’s argument, and its effects (lots of ‘little’ plays? e.g. Titania and Bottom)

• Play #3: Pyramus and Thisbe

Key Facts

Date: “Mentioned in Francis Meres’ 1598 list of Shakespeare’s plays. Reference in Act 1 scene 2 to courtiers being afraid of a stage lion may allude to an incident in Scotland in August 1594. Strong stylistic resemblances to other ‘lyrical’ plays of Shakespeare’s high Elizabethan period, such as Richard II and especially Romeo and Juliet: this group of plays is traditionally dated to 1595-96.”

Linguistic Medium: 80% verse, 20% prose(Ed. Bate and Rasmussen, p. 17)

Key Facts

Sources: “The main plot is apparently without a direct source, which is unusual for Shakespeare. The tale of Pyramus and Thisbe is derived principally from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, book 4. It also has strong structural resemblances to the Romeo and Juliet story, which Shakespeare dramatized around the same time” (Ed. Bate and Rasmussen, p. 17)

Key FactsSources: “Shakespeare’s eclectic reading”

• Ovidian mythology (notable, The Metamorphoses, in which humans are transformed into animals because of bestial desires; Ovid was a Roman poet, born 43 BCE)

• Sir Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives (Theseus and Hippolyta)• John Lyly’s comedies (for dreaming and interplay of aristocrats and artisans:

ie the mechanicals Bottom etc)• Chaucer (lovers at the court of Theseus, dream of sleeping with an ‘elf

queen’)• Apuleius’ The Golden Ass (? for Bottom’s transformation)

(Ed. Bate and Rasmussen, p. 17)

Key Facts: Major Parts

Bottom: 12%Theseus: 11%Helena: 11%Robin Goodfellow (Puck): 10%Oberon: 10%Lysander: 8%Hermia: 8%

Titania: 7% Demetrius: 6%Quince: 5%Flute: 3%Egeus: 3%Hippolyta: 2%(Ed. Bate and Rasmussen, p. 17)

The Mythical Theseus

The Mythological Hippolyta: Queen of the Amazons

Hippolyta (and all other female characters) would have originally been played by a boy actor

MSND and the Pastoral Tradition

“a deliberately conventional poem expressing an urban poet’s nostalgic image of the peace and simplicity of the life of shepherds and other rural folk in an idealized natural setting. ... Classical poets often described the pastoral life as possessing features of the mythical golden age. Christian pastoralists combined the golden age of pagan fable with the Garden of Eden in the Bible ... To give many pastoral poems a Christian range of reference. In the Renaissance the traditional pastoral was also adapted to diverse satirical and allegorical uses” (Abrams 202)

Titian and Giorgione: The Pastoral Concert (c. 1508)

Pastoral Romance

As You Like It

“... set in the forest of Arden, a green refuge from the trouble and complications of ordinary life where all enmities are reconciled, all problems resolved, and the course of true love made to run smooth” (Abrams 203)

Matisse: Pastoral (1905)

Comedy

“In the most common literary application, a comedy is a fictional work in which the materials are selected and managed primarily in order to interest and amuse us: the characters and their discomfitures engage our pleasurable attention rather than our profound concern, we are made to feel confident that no great disaster will occur, and usually the action turns out happily for the chief characters. The term ‘comedy’ is customarily applied only to plays for the stage or to motion pictures; is should be noted, however, that the comic form, so defined, also occurs in prose fiction and narrative poetry” (Abrams 38)

Sir Philip Sidney

Comedy is ‘is an imitation of the common errors of our life, which [the poet] representeth in the most ridiculous and scornful sort that may be, so as it is impossible that any beholder can be content to be such a one’ (Apology for Poetry 117).

Romantic Comedy

“Romantic comedy was developed by Elizabethan dramatists on the model of contemporary prose romances such as Thomas Lodge’s Rosalynde (1590), the source of Shakespeare’s As You Like It (1599). Such comedy represents a love affair that involves a beautiful and engaging heroine (sometimes disguised as a man); the course of this love does not run smooth, yet overcomes all difficulties to end in a happy union” (Abrams 38).

Romantic Comedy continued “In The Anatomy of Criticism (1957) Northrope Frye points out that some of Shakespeare’s romantic comedies manifest a movement from the normal world of conflict and trouble into ‘the green world’—the Forest of Arden in As You Like It, or the fairy-haunted wood of A Midsummer Night’s Dream—in which the problems and injustices of the ordinary world are dissolved, enemies reconciled, and true lovers united” (Abrams 38)

Movement of Comedy

“the action of comedy begins in a world represented as a normal world, moves into the green world, goes into a metamorphosis there in which the comic resolution is achieved, and returns to the normal world” (Frye qtd in Bate and Rasmussen, p. 8)

“Good comedy is tragedy narrowly averted...”

(Bate and Rasmussen, p. 4)

“Binary Oppositions”

“In critical theory, a binary opposition (also binary system) is a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite in meaning. Binary opposition is the system by which, in language and thought, two theoretical opposites are strictly defined and set off against one another. It is the contrast between two mutually exclusive terms, such as on and off, up and down, left and right.”

The first term is privileged over the second

Tragedy / comedyMan / womanMan / animalLight /darkRight / leftWhite / blackDuty / pleasureWest / eastCountry / cityRational / emotionalRational/ imaginativeRationality / dream

Potential for tragedy: all is not quite right in either the ‘real’ world or in fairyland

Titania:These are the forgeries of jealousy,And never since the middle summer’s springMet we on hill, in dale, forest or mead.By pavèd fountain or by rushy brook,Or in the beachèd margent of the sea,To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind,But with thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport.Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain,As in revenge, have sucked up from the seaContagious fogs, which falling in the landHath every petty river made so proudThat they have overborne their continents. (2.1.82-93)

“Chain of Being”

• God• Angels• Man• Animals/Beasts• Hierarchically arranged (= an ideal of order)• Man is “fallen”, therefore imperfect. Between

angels (able to perceive with his Rational Soul) and beasts (must try to govern his passions)

“The Renaissance inherited the concept of scala naturae—the ladder of Nature, or Chain of Being. According to this, all things in Creation, from highest to lowest, are linked in a continuous series. In the divinely ordered universe, everything has its proper place and its proper relations to other things. . . . At the head of the Chain of Being comes God, the first Mover and Maker of all things. Angels make up an order of being between God and man and are themselves subdivided by rank [Seraphins, Cherubim, Archangels etc) . . . Just as angels are midway between God and man, so man is midway between angel and beast. . . . [Man’s] higher, Rational Soul, allows him to perceive divine perfection. But in his fallen state, man cannot always govern his passions with his Rational Soul, and so he equally has much in common with the beasts. This is the duality of human nature expressed by Hamlet:

“What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god—the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals! And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust?” (2.2.284-87)

“Chain of being” cont.

“Below man come beasts, plants and inanimate objects. These in turn are subdivided into categories: the lion, the dolphin and the eagle are the princes of animals, fish and birds, respectively. The oak is supreme among trees, and gold is at the top of the scale of minerals. Everywhere the material world indicates a cosmos ordered by rank” (Hebron 20-22)

The Quarrel

Oberon: Do you amend it then, it lies in you.Why should Titania cross her Oberon?I do but beg a little changeling boyTo be my henchman......Titania: And for her sake [the boy’s dead mother] do Irear up her boy;And for her sake I will not part with him ......Oberon: Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.Titania: Not for the fairy kingdom. Fairies, away.We shall chide downright, if I longer stay. (2.1.119--

147)

Sir Joseph Paton: The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania (1846)

The QuarrelOberon:

I’ll to my queen and beg her Indian boy;And then I will her charmèd eye releaseFrom monster’s view, and all things shall be

peace. (3.2.388-90)

When I had at my pleasure taunted her [Titania],

And she in mild terms begged my patience,I then did ask of her her changeling child,Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent To bear him to my bower in fairy land.And now I have the boy, I will undoThis hateful imperfection of her eyes. (4.1.57-63)

Violence

1. Theseus to Hippolyta (1.1.17-20)2. Egeus to Hermia (1.1.40-46)3. Theseus backs Egeus (1.1.67-80)4. Oberon will “torment” Titania (2.1.148-150, 180-89)5. Puck’s pranks (2.1.43-58)6. Puck gets it wrong (squeezes juice on Lysander’s

eyes rather than Demetrius’ eyes: 2.2.78)7. Tiffs → Humphs → Fights8. ‘Assification’ of Bottom (3.1.99)

TiffsHelena: Lo, she [Hermia] is one of this confed’racy!Now I perceive they have conjoined all threeTo fashion this false sport in spite of me.Injurious Hermia, most ungrateful maid,Have you conspired, have you with these contrivedTo bait me with this foul derision?Is all the counsel that we two have shared,The sisters’ vows, the hours that we have spent,When we have chid the hasty-footed timeFor parting us – O, is all forgot? ............................... So we grew togetherLike to a double cherry, seeming parted,But yet a union in partition,Two lovely berries moulded on one stem, . . .And will you rent our ancient love asunder,To join with men in scorning your poor friend? (MSND 3.2.193-217)

Humphs (more serious than a tiff)

Helena: Fine, i’faith!Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,No touch of bashfulness? What, will you tearImpatient answers from my gentle tongue?Fie, fie! You counterfeit, you puppet, you!Hermia: Puppet? Why so? Ay, that way goes the game.Now I perceive that she hath made compareBetween our statures, she hath urged her height,And with her personage, her tall personage,Her height, forsooth, she hath prevailed with him.And are you grown so high in his esteemBecause I am so dwarfish and so low?How low am I, thou painted maypole? Speak!How low am I? I am not yet so lowBut that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.Helena: I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,Let her not hurt me; ... ............... (MSND 3.2.292-308)

Tiff → Humphs → FightHermia: . . . Let me come to her. Lysander: Get you gone, you dwarf,You minimus of hind’ring knot-grass made!You bead, you acorn.Demetrius: You are too officious In her behalf that scorns your services.Let her alone. Speak not of Helena,Take not her part. For if thou dost intendNever so little show of love to her,Thou shalt abide it.Lysander: Now she holds me not. Now follow, if thou dar’st, to try whose right,Of thine or mine, is most in Helena.Demetrius: Follow? Nay, I’ll go with thee, cheek by jowl. (MSND 3.2.337-351)

Exeunt Lysander and Demetrius

Metamorphosis: The ‘Assification’ of Bottom

The play-within-a-play (within a play)

Masque“The masque (a variant spelling of ‘mask’) was inaugurated in Renaissance Italy and flourished in England during the reigns of Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I. In its full development, it was an elaborate form of court entertainment that combined poetic drama, music, song, dance, splendid costuming, and stage spectacle. A plot—often slight, and mainly mythological and allegorical—served to hold together these diverse elements. The speaking characters, who wore masks (hence the title), were often played by amateurs who belonged to courtly society” (Abrams 153)

Eric Rousset: Masques de Venise

Court Masque versus Pyramus and Thisbe

Plot: tragedyActors : mechanicalsSets: rudimentary / basic;

someone has to ‘play’ the wall

Verse: bad / clunkyReception: mocked

“The theatrical style of their performance is pointedly outmoded, just as the subject of the story they enact displays a more primitive violence than the actions of the Shakespearean drama within which it is set. . . . the Ovidian tale of Pyramus and Thisbe, of filial disobedience, elopement and death casts a retrospective darkness over the preceding action of the play. Even if the onstage audience thinks the Ovidian drama presided over by Bottom is hopelessly outmoded, the offstage audience might see that the whole play is haunted by an ancient, threatening presence of Ovid which it is labouring very hard to turn into comedy.” (Burrow 308)

Happy Ending? [FAIRIES sing] The Song

Now until the break of dayThrough this house each fairy stray.To the best bride-bed will we,Which by us shall blessèd be;And the issue there createEver shall be fortunate. So shall all the couples threeEver true in loving be.And the blots of Nature’s handShall not in their issue stand.Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar,Nor mark prodigious, such as are Despisèd in nativity,Shall upon their children be. (MSND 5.1.398-411)

“Perhaps [Shakespeare] is taking dark subject-matter – violence, illicit desire, monstrous births – and transforming it into something life-affirming, emptying it of all sinister content, just as the play performed by Peter Quince and friends takes another tragic tale from classical mythology, that of Pyramus and Thisbe, and fills it with ‘mirth’. Or perhaps he is suggesting that, however joyous comedy’s climactic festivity may be, it offers only a momentary suspension of life’s complications” (Ed. Bate and Rasmussen 7).

Monday’s lecture (4 August)

The close reading passage from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

We shall be discussing the passage in a number of contexts: e.g. difference between prose and verse; types of verse (especially iambic pentameter); poetic/literary techniques such as personification, alliteration, enjambment; key concepts in Renaissance literature such as the Chain of Being and decorum.

You MUST bring a copy of the passage (available on MyUni) and a copy of the play.

List of Works Cited

MSND by William Shakespeare. RSC Edition. Ed. Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2008.

Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 7th Ed. Fort Worth, Texas: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1999.

Hebron, Malcolm. Key Concepts in Renaissance Literature. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2008.

Sidney, Sir Philip. An Apology for Poetry. Ed. Geoffrey Shepherd. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1965.