A Midsummer Night's Dream

Shakespeare writes about love a lot. This quote is about that theme, but what I like about this quote is that it doesn't support the "love at first sight" notion. In fact, the heroic couplet...

These lines are spoken by Helena at the end of the first scene of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. At the beginning of the play, Helena is in love with Demetrius—who once wooed her—but he...

The line is spoken by Bottom in William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" Act III Scene 1. The full quotation is: [Bottom:] Methinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that. And...

Puck changes Bottom's head into an ass because he is such a poor actor. This is Shakespeare's way of poking fun at bad actors. It also leads to one of the funniest scenes in the play. When Bottom...

Oberon and Titania, king and queen of the fairies, both want a young Indian boy to be part of their entourage. Titania wants the child, who is half mortal, half fairy, because she promised his dead...

In Puck's speech at the end of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, just as in the "parabasis" of ancient Greek Old Comedy, a character breaks the "fourth wall" and speaks directly to the...

An epilogue is a speech and it almost like a PS (postscript) to the main body of, in this case a play. It can serve to bring closure to events or answer questions which may still confuse the...

eNotes editors can only answer one question at a time; others must be posted separately. In Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Theseus comments that love and imagination are similar. He...

Personification is a literary device that gives human qualities or characteristics to inanimate objects, ideas, animals, or abstractions. It's a popular form of figurative language, and so it...

In Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Oberon sees how much Helena loves Demetrius. Oberon instructs Puck (his fairy henchman) to seek out a flower in a place they once visited. While Puck...

In Act 3, sc. 1, Puck (Robin Goodfellow) decides, when he watches the tradesmen and Bottom practicing their play, that they are foolish and Bottom is especially a fool. Puck calls them "...hempen...

In Act III Scene 1 of A Midsummer Night's Dream, the craftsmen enter the woods in order to rehearse their play. After Bottom warns Quince that he will need two separate prologues, one for the men...

Critics have frequently remarked upon the "profusion of poetic imagery" with which Shakespeare's bountiful imagination endows the fairy world in A Midsummer Night's Dream. This delightful...

Theseus kindly overrides Egeus to allow Lysander and Hermia to marry, but primarily he is bemused by love's irrationality and thus sees all four of the lovers' adventures as a form of madness or...

In the first act of the play, Theseus tells Hermia she must marry the man her father has chosen. If she does not, only two options remain: "Either to die the death or to abjure For ever the...

At first glance, Lysander and Demetrius appear to be fairly interchangeable characters in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. They both fall in love with the wrong woman. Lysander falls in...

Lysander and Hermia represent a couple who is physically devoted to each other but is also not the strongest of couples. We see their weaknesses as a couple when they encounter obstacles, such as...

Helena tells Demetrius that Hermia and Lysander have run away because she hopes that he will change his mind and fall for her. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a simple story, really. Hermia and...

King Oberon and Queen Titania enter the play in Act II, Scene 1. When we first see them, they are quarreling. Robin Goodfellow (aka Puck) tells us why. He says that they are fighting because...

One reason the forest is an important setting in A Midsummer Night's Dream is that the forest creates a dark, wild, mysterious atmosphere in which the magical elements of Shakespeare's plot can be...

In one of the most well-known lines from William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, the mischievous sprite Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, says to the fairy king, Oberon, "Lord, what fools these...

The theme of love always raises many questions and in A Midsummer Night's Dream there are many instances which reveal that love can be fickle, unfair, intense, contradictory, irrational, painful...

In his comedies, Shakespeare examines another theme, love, and all the various ways that it manifests in the human experience. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, he uses another thematic proposition,...

In literature and film, there are various stages which reveal aspects of the work being analysed in terms of its dramatic structure. This structure ensures that the story flows and reaches a...

In Act Five, Scene One of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Theseus asserts, "No die, but an ace for him," while watching the Pyramus and Thisbe play. This is a pun (although not necessarily one that...

Helena awakens in this scene to find Lysander and Demetrius both madly in love with her. Helena has no way of knowing this is due to Puck having dropped a love potion into their eyes, so she...

In act 2, scene 1 of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Oberon, King of the Fairies, is having a disagreement with Titania, Queen of the Fairies, about a young Indian prince who...

Lysander’s plan is to run away with Hermia to his aunt’s house, where they can be married beyond the reach of Theseus and Egeus. Hermia wants to marry Lysander, and he wants to marry her. Hermia’s...

In act 1, the central conflict involves Hermia, who is expected by her father, Egeus, to marry Demetrius. The problem is Hermia is in love with Lysander. Because of their love, she vows that she...

Props are any small objects that are used by actors in a play to help them tell the story, which exclude the set design. If we were to use as few props as possible with minimal set design, there...

William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream fits the description of "romantic comedy" for at least two reasons: it focuses on the romantic relationships of characters, and it ends in marriages....

One of Hermia's personality traits is that she is very self-assertive; she is strong and very independently minded, lacking any fear of expressing her opinion. We see her demonstrate this trait in...

Perhaps it's being reminded a bit too perfectly what adolescent/college "romances" were like - and how I probably acted quite a bit like these two poor girls at various times in my...

Of all Shakespeare's plays, A Midsummer Night's Dream is the most magical. Magic is an element of the supernatural, as it's traditionally believed to come from outside the natural world. In other...

Helena is very obviously a desperate woman. Having once given herself to Demetrius, she cannot get over the fact that he no longer loves her and does whatever she can to rectify the situation. She...

The climax provided in Act 3 occurs when Bottom’s head is replaced with that of an ass, and the anointed lovers gather together, argue, and fall asleep. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is broken up into...

In act II, scene i, starting at line 233, Shakespeare uses the literary device of monologue. A monologue is like a soliloquy in being a speech that expresses a character's thoughts. It differs from...

The forest is a perfect setting for A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The words midsummer and night in the title suggest a story in which nature plays an important role. Midsummer is a time of...

Though there are four different plots in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," there is one theme that connects them all: love. The wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta: Theseus is the ruler of Athens and has...

In act 4 of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Titania, Nick Bottom, Helena, Hermia, Lysander, and Demetrius wake from their slumbers. All are surprised and confused by recent events. Before Titania wakes,...

In act III, scene 1, Nick Bottom is turned (partly) from a man into an ass when Puck puts a spell on him. It is only his head, not his whole body, that is transformed. Puck was making mischief,...

In the hilarious play within the play presented in Act 5 of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, confusions abound, including the following: Many examples of the use of wrong word...

Both Demetrius, who wants to marry Hermia against her will, and Egeus, her father, who wants her to marry Demetrius, appeal to the power of the state in the form of Theseus, the Duke of Athens, in...

The story of Pyramus and Thisbe is a tragedy; it's about the star-crossed young lovers who kill themselves needlessly. That makes it lamentable, or sad. The "comedy" is that Bottom and...

The four lovers are all young, passionate, and romantic. Helena, spurned by Demetrius despite her love for him, displays low self esteem. She is sad and down on herself, constantly comparing...

Hermia completely misses the point the play makes that love is blind. Therefore, when she realizes Lysander has abandoned her and fallen in love with Helena, she grasps for a rational explanation...

This is an interesting question, and there is no single answer which is obviously right. A Midsummer Night's Dream, even more than most of Shakespeare's comedies, is truly an ensemble piece, and no...

One major difference is that Demetrius is portrayed as a bully and physically aggressive, while Lysander is characterized as being sensitive and respectful.We see Demetrius being portrayed as...

The word "moon" is repeated twenty-seven times in act 5, scene 1. In Shakespeare's plays, the moon is often used as a symbol of inconstancy and fickleness. In Romeo and Juliet, for example, Juliet...

In Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, the sprites, or fairies, are something of a surprise for the Elizabethan audience for whom the play was written. Up until this point in time, people in...