1. A Midsummer Night’s Dream The Curse of True Love Never Did Run Smooth

2. Background  “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is one of Shakepreare’s most popular plays and certainly one that can be read very successfully with younger students.  Midsummer’s Eve = summer soltice  It was traditionally a time of “fairy tales and temporary madness” – Stephen Greenblatt (The Norton Shakespeare)  Set in the classical world of Athens, but, of course, features strong overtones of Elizabethan England.

3. Plot Summary In the play, Shakespeare gives the nature of love and desire a close but comic look. There are four young lovers, two young men fall in love with one woman and then another. It takes much sorting out and help from the fairy world before “every Jack has his Jill,” as Puck says in the end.

4. 4 STORIES IN ONE 1.The marriage of Theseus with Hippolyta. 2.The story of the four young lovers. 3.The story of the rude mechanicals and their “15 minutes of fame” 4.The land of the fairies.

5. AMND Connections

6. Focal Points for Exploration 1.The lyricism and high art of Shakespeare’s language is especially evident here. The scene features rhymed iambic pentameter, which is somewhat unusual. Students will also be exposed here to rhymed trochaic tetrameter, which occurs, as is typical, with fairy speech. The fairy speech itself is often irregular and full of reversed feet.

7. 2.The fairy world presented in the play creates abundant opportunities for imaginative flights of fancy. Ex. Imagine the size and scale of the fairy world Draw what Shakespeare describes like elves hiding in acorn shells o avoid the fighting between Titania and Oberon.

8. Some interesting questions… 3.How powerful are the forces of love and desire? 4.How do they affect our ability to think rationally? 5.How can we know when we are really in love? 6.What is love?

9. Discussion Questions 1.In the beginning of the scene, which speech contains significant exposition (where the character provides the back story or fills the audience in on what is happening)? PUCK EXPLAINS THE ARGUMENT BETWEEN TITANIA AND OBERON.

10. 2.How big are the elves? SINCE PUCK REFERS TO THEM HIDING IN ACORN SHELLS WE CAN ASSUME THEY ARE QUITE TINY, PERHAPS UNDER AN INCH HIGH.

11. 3.Why does Oberon want Puck to get that certain flower he showed him once? SO THAT HE CAN USE IT TO PUNISH TITANIA; HE WILL PUT THE JUICE IN HER EYES AND MAKE HER FALL IN LOVE WITH SOME UNSUITABLE CREATURE.

12. 4.How does Helena make a heaven of hell? BY BEING WITH HER ADORED DEMITRIUS, WHICH IS HEAVEN, EVEN THOUGH HE SPURNS HE CRUELTY WHICH IS HELL.

13. 5.Why does Hermia want Lysander to sleep further off? THEY ARE NOT YET MARRIED.

14. 6.Why does Hermia think Demetrius killed Lysander? DEMITRIUS WAS SUPPOSED TO MARRY HERMIA BEFORE SHE AND LYSANDER ESCAPED TO THE WOODS TO AVOID A FORCED MARRIAGE. HERMIA THINKS DEMITRIUS HAS SLAIN HIS RIVAL.

15. 7.What line best sums up Puck’s attitude toward the human world? LORD WHAT FOOLS THESE MORTALS BE!

16. 8.Why does Helena think the others are plotting against her? JUST RECENTLY BOTH DEMETRIUS AND LYSANDER WERE NOT INTERESTED IN HER AND NOW THEY BOTH ARE IN LOVE WITH HER. SHE THINKS THAT THEY, TOGETHER WITH HERMIA, ARE HAVING FUN AT HER EXPENSE. (SHE IS UNAWARE OF THE FAIRY WORLD’S INTERVENTION.)

17. Read and Act it out

18. Explaining the Unexplainable

19. Trading Insults

20. Art Projects  Costume design / color schemes  Stage design  Dance: the madness between the lovers / the fairy world  Comic book  Musical themes