1. “I pray thee gentle mortal, sing again...”

2. Reading the text
Before we start to analyse each scene in detail (step 2) we need to read for overall understanding and context.
This will allow you to:
add to your notes from your film viewing on structure and effect (AO1: ‘informed response’)
add to your AO4 notes and begin to apply them more specifically to the text (AO4: ‘significance and influence of contexts’)
create a foundation to build on with your in-depth AO2 analysis (AO1: ‘informed response’)

3. After each scene...
1. Make notes on the characters, setting and events of the scene + any immediately obvious AO4

4. 2. Add to your timeline for each of the four plots, noting where they overlap and/or meet
3. Answer the questions on your sheet

5. 4. Research your given reference or topic and prepare to share your findings with the class
Act 1 Scene 1:
Ancient Greece and Athens
Theseus
Hippolyta and the Amazons
Marriage in Shakespeare’s time
Diana, goddess of the moon and hunting
Cupid and his arrows (esp. lead arrows) + “painted blind”
Venus’ doves
“the Carthage queen” (Dido) and “false Troyan” (Aeneas)
Phoebe

6. Act 1 Scene 2
The names of the ‘mechanicals’ –
Bottom
Quince
Snug
Flute
Snout
Starveling
Pyramus and Thisbe
‘Ercles’ = Hercules
‘Phibbus’ = Phoebus, the sun god
The three Fates
‘French crowns have no hair at all’ – the ‘French disease’ and baldness

7. Act 2 Scene 1
Robin Goodfellow/Puck
Elizabethan ideas of fairies and spirits
Changelings
Corin and Phillida (pastoral poetry)
Theseus’ women: Perigenia, Aegles, Ariadne and Antiopa
Hiems
Neptune
‘the imperial votress’ (Queen Elizabeth I)
Apollo and Daphne

8. Act 2 Scene 2
Philomel
Symbolism of the serpent

9. Act 3 Scene 1
‘eight and six’ as a ballad form
The ‘man in the moon’, his lantern and bush of thorns
Ninus’ tomb (Ninah, the founder of Nineveh)
Symbolism of an ass head
Cuckold
Elizabethan use of peaseblossom/peasecod, mustardseed, moth and cobweb

10. Act 3 Scene 2
Elizabethan beliefs about sighs and love
Tartar’s bow
Acheron
‘Aurora’s harbinger’ and Aurora the goddess

11. Act 4 Scene 1
‘the tongs and the bones’
Hercules and Cadmus
‘hounds of Sparta’
‘Thessalian bulls’
1 Corinthians 2: 9-10

12. Act 4 Scene 2
‘sixpence’ in Shakespeare’s time

13. Act 5 Scene 1
Helen of Troy
The Lapiths and the Centaurs
Orpheus and the Bacchae
Spenser’s ‘The Tears of the Muses’
‘Limander’ = Leander and ‘Helen’ = Hero
‘Shafalus to Procrus’ = Cephalus and Procris
Bergamesque dance (Bergamo, Italy)
Hecate – in ‘triple’ form (Luna/Cynthia; Diana; Proserpina)