A Midsummer Night’s Dream Group

Question:

snacks
snacks
Student
High School - 9th Grade

What is the problem and how is it solved?

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Posted by snacks on Wednesday June 3, 2009 at 4:57 PM and tagged with conflict, plot, resolution.

Answers:


  1. epollock Teacher
    High School - 12th Grade

    snacks,

    Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" refers to the summer solstice (the longest day of the year), around June 23, but in fact the play is set in May. Still, the holiday of Midsummer Night is appropriate since this day was associated with magic (herbs gathered on this night could charm), with lovers’ dreams, and with madness.

    The play begins (and ends) in what passes for the real world, that is, Athens, a city that supposedly stands for reason and law. Theseus (accent on the first syllable)—the highest ranking character—speaks first, in blank verse, the form that he and Hippolyta always use, except in the fifth act, where they sometimes speak in prose. Shakespeare does a good deal to give different kinds of speech to the different kinds of characters. The young lovers in the wood will use rhyme, the fairies will use songs, and the mechanicals will use prose.

    By the time you have finished with the play, you can reasonably feel that Shakespeare is saying something about youthful lawless passion turning into something more decorous, and that people who are in love will find a way to stay in love.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/midsummer

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    Posted by epollock on Sunday June 14, 2009 at 12:55 AM