Analysis
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Shakespeare Online.(2020). An Introduction to A Midsummer Night's Dream. Retrieved from http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/midsummer/midanalysis.html
No play was ever named more appropriately than this; it is a "Dream," - a dream composed of elves, mistakes, wild fantasies, and the grotesque. -
Arts Council England. (2020). Analysis. Retrieved from https://www.rsc.org.uk/shakespeare-learning-zone/a-midsummer-nights-dream/language/analysis
To help you look at any scene in A Midsummer Night's Dream and interrogate it, it’s important to ask questions about how it's written and why.
Context
Shakespeare with Isi. (2021, March 28). A Midsummer Night's Dream - Dramatis Personae / Characters, by William Shakespeare [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2w_ARdolSs
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Sparknotes. (2020). A Midsummer Night's Dream. Retrieved from https://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/msnd/context/
The most influential writer in all of English literature, William Shakespeare was born in 1564 to a successful middle-class glove-maker in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Shakespeare attended grammar school, but his formal education proceeded no further.
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Coursehero. (2016). A Midsummer Night's Dream. Retrieved from https://www.coursehero.com/lit/A-Midsummer-Nights-Dream/context/
In A Midsummer Night's Dream, the fairy king Oberon and the fairy queen Titania quarrel over a changeling child. Titania will not give the child to Oberon despite Oberon's demands. -
Alchin, L.K. (2012). Elizabethan Era. Retrieved from http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/elizabethan-life.htm
Daily life in Elizabethan England varied according to status and location. It was the time of the Renaissance - new ideas in science and literature and all aspects of Elizabethan Daily life.
Literary Criticism
Coursehero. (2019, May 31). A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare | Summary & Analysis. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HALEIcLFqM&feature=emb_logo
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The Apostolate of Commonsense. (2020). A Midsummer Night's Dream. Retrieved from https://www.chesterton.org/midsummer-nights-dream/
The greatest of Shakespeare’s comedies is also, from a certain point of view, the greatest of his plays. No one would maintain that it occupied this position in the matter of psychological study if by psychological study we mean the study of individual characters in a play.
A Midsummer Night's Dream Summary
McLean, D. (2011). Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream | CliffsNotes Video Summary. [Video File]. Retrieved from:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxqXN7umwN0
Intertextuality
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Richards, U. (2016). Dreams and Nonsense: The Interchangeable Nature of ‘Dream’ and ‘Reality’. Retrieved from http://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/28010/1/PubSub5538_Carter.pdf
Central to both early modern critical study and the theory of intertextuality are concepts such
as the plurality of discourse, the mutually informing relationship between cultural ideologies
and texts, and the instability of texts. -
Richards, U. (2016). Dreams and Nonsense: The Interchangeable Nature of ‘Dream’ and ‘Reality’. Retrieved from http://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/28010/1/PubSub5538_Carter.pdf
Dreams in themselves are often understood to be nonsensical in their nature; their lack of clarity, structure and rationality means that they are clearly distinct from our reality.
Bitesize A Midsummer Night's Dream
BBC Worldwide Learning (Producer). (n.d.). A Midsummer Night's Dream. [Video File episode]. In BBC Worldwide Learning (Producers), Bitesize Shakespeare . Retrieved from Https://online.clickview.com.au/
Themes
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Litcharts. (n.d.) A Midsummer Night's Dream Summary. Retrieved from https://www.litcharts.com/lit/a-midsummer-nights-dream/summary
In the palace in ancient Athens, Duke Theseus and his fiancé Hippolyta are planning their wedding festivities when Egeus, an Athenian nobleman, arrives. Egeus has with him his daughter, Hermia, and two men, Lysander and Demetrius.
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Sparknotes. (2020). A Midsummers Night's Dream. https://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/msnd/themes/
The theme of love’s difficulty is often explored through the motif of love out of balance—that is, romantic situations in which a disparity or inequality interferes with the harmony of a relationship.