For Next Week: A MIdsummer Night's Dream, Acts 1-2

NOTE: A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that is constantly pitting different worlds against one another: the word of the forest (Oberon, Titania, Puck, etc.) vs. the world of upper-class Athens (Theseus, Hermia, Lysander, etc.) vs. the world of lower-class Athens (Bottom, Flute, Snout, etc.). To complicate matters, Theseus and Hippolyta are figures from Greek myth, though they exist side-by-side with the upper and lower-class characters in Athens who are really characters from Shakespeare's England. When these worlds mix, chaos--and comedy--ensue. 

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: How do the paired lovers discuss the rules and ideals of love in Act One? Consider especially Helena's speech in 1.1, and Egeus' complaint to Theseus at the beginning of the play. Also, consider how characters play with the metaphor of "love as sight" throughout the first Act. For example, Hermia says, "I would my father looked but with my eyes," and Helena says, "Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,/The rest I'd give to be to you translated" (1.1). 

Q2; How do the "rustics" (the low class players) satirize the idea of acting and perhaps of Shakespeare's own theater, esp. in Act 1, scene 2? What are the consistently getting wrong about how to act and how to stage a play? And what makes their attempts at staging a classical tragedy funny? What might Bevis say about this? 

Q3: Read Titania's speech in 2.1 carefully. What does this say about her character and about the nature of love itself? How does it offer a commentary on many of the themes/metaphors of Act 1? 

Q4: Though prose and verse are pretty strictly followed in these Acts (verse for upper class, prose for lower), the use of verse often breaks from imabic pentameter into couplets and songs. Why does Shakespeare employ so many variations of poetry throughout Acts 1 and especially 2?