World of Our Play

THE CHARACTERS

CITIZENS OF ATHENS

• Duke Theseus: The Duke of Athens. Conqueror of the Amazons and Hippolyta's captor.
• Queen Hippolyta: Former Queen of the Amazons and prisoner-bride to Duke Theseus.
• Philostrate: Duke Theseus' primary attendant.
• Egeus: Hermia's father.
  • YOUNG LOVERS
    • Hermia: The daughter of Egeus; in love with Lysander despite being betrothed to Demetrius.
    • Lysander: In love with Hermia (for the majority of the play).
    • Demetrius: In love with Hermia from the beginning of the play. Rejects Helena's advances until nearly the end of the play.
    • Helena: In love with Demetrius, despite his love for Hermia.

THE FAIRY LAND

• Titania: Queen of the fairies; falls in love with Bottom when under a spell.
• Oberon: King of the fairies.
• Puck: AKA Robin Goodfellow. Oberon's primary attendant.
• Fairies (Mustardseed, Cobweb, Peaseblossom, & Moth): Queen Titiana's attendants (forced to serve Bottom as well).

THE MECHANICALS

• Peter Quince: Manager of the acting troupe (assigned Thisby's father)
• Nick Bottom: The leading actor in the troupe (assigned Pyramus); a plumber
• Francis Flute: An actor in the troupe (assigned Thisby); an HVAC repair person
• Tom Snout: An actor in the troupe (assigned Pyramus' father); a mechanic
• Snug: An actor in the troupe (assigned the lion); a stylist

The Title: Why Midsummer (The Summer Solstice)?

• "Because midsummer is about the time of the solstice, it has been associated with solar ceremonies since long before Christianity. Relics of such ceremonies are the bright bonfires and the merrymaking of midsummer night. Formerly it was considered the one night of the year when supernatural beings were about. The importance of this night to love and lovers is undoubtedly a survival of fertility rites."
• The longest day of the year

• Annual reversal (a la The Hunchback of Notre Dame): "The day was marked not only by the typical feasts and games, but by an even more remarkable occurrence: for once, slaves could participate in the festivities along with the freemen, joined in equality for a single day."
• "...on this evening, if you were very lucky, you might even catch a glimpse of faeries, who favored midsummer to reveal themselves to the common folk. (Rub fern seeds on your eyelids at midnight’s stroke if you want to spy one—but if you do, be sure to come equipped with rue, lest the pixies lead you astray). It’s only too clear why Shakespeare set his famous comedy during the magic of midsummer’s evening."

Significance of Athenian Setting

• "...Herman points out that setting a play in ancient Athens would have immediately evoked a set of political notions in the minds of early English audiences. At the time Athens was considered a common wealth 'commonly associated…with republicanism, which implies a polity governed by law rather than the ruler’s will' (Herman, 5). Setting the play in Athens thus establishes an environment where statutory law reigns supreme and which the common wealth’s leader is responsible for upholding. With this common knowledge assumed, Herman continues to explore Shakespeare’s intentionality of this choice by discussing the leader of Athens, Theseus."
• "Initially, Theseus finds a middle ground by providing an alternative punishment: “Either…death, or to abjure / Forever the society of men” (Shakespeare 1.1.65-66). Of course, as the play continues, and Theseus and Egeus later find Hermia in the woods along with her two suitors and Helena, Theseus completely goes back on his word. When Egeus demands that Lysander be punished, Theseus responds: 'Egeus, I will overbear your will' (Shakespeare 4.1.179)."

"Herman emphasizes this response as an incredibly hypocritical stance by a supposed upholder of the law. While Egeus demands that Lysander be punished according to the law of Athens, Theseus reduces his claims to that of his own personal will and uses this to rationalize his decision to ignore the “ancient privilege of Athens” (Shakespeare 1.1.41). Herman then provides an epilogue for Theseus, explaining that this historic character is eventually overthrown as a result of similar “tyrannical” actions and arguing that Theseus decision to create a happy ending for Hermia and Lysander only foreshadows his personal downfall, and, as Herman puts it, 'thus casting a subtle but significant shadow on the happy ending of the play' (22)."

• "The politicization of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Herman argues, begins with the immediate conflict between Egeus and his daughter, Hermia, who refuses to marry the man her father has promised her to. Egeus storms onto stage to demand that Theseus maintain the law by punishing his daughter, specifically exclaiming that the only fit punishment is death. Herman notes that the specific phrase Egeus uses to refer to the law, the “ancient privilege of Athens,” would have resonated with Shakespeare’s audiences as a common legal term that 'was closely associated with the authority of the Ancient Constitution, the privilege of Parliament, habeas corpus, and Magna Carta' (Herman 11). In addition to familiarity, this term creates an urgency and increased pressure on Theseus to do as he previously promised. A death sentence for disobeying a father being extreme even by Elizabethan standards, Theseus is not quick to agree with Egeus and is faced with a difficult choice: either obey the law and lose reason to an overly harsh punishment, or give into reason and sidestep the law."

Fairies

• Etymology
  • The term ‘fairy’ originates with the Middle English word faerie, as well as fairie, fayerye and feirie, which were borrowed directly from the Old French faerie. In Middle English the word meant either enchantment, the land of enchantment, or the collective noun for those who dwelt in fairyland. In etymological terms ‘fairy’ is rooted in the word fay or fae from faery or faerie meaning ‘realm of the fays’. In modern English usage faerie became fairy and faie became fay which refers to a ‘fairy’. In other words the suffix ‘erie’ was attached the word ‘faie’ to mean a place or something found. For the Scots fey derived from fae became ‘faerie’ or ‘fearie’ meaning illusion or enchantment. The appellation erie eventually came to define a trade, craft, or place such as midwifery, fishery, cookery, thievery, and nunnery, and thence to wizardry, witchery, roguery and knavery.

In ethnological terms the exotic word pirie or peerie “…consequently Peribecomes in the mouth of an Arab Feti” (Edwards, 1974), which migrated to England via France to become ‘fairy’. In ancient Egyptian myth fairies paralleled the Seven Hathors or patronesses of childbirth, those regarded as ‘fairy godmothers’ (MacCulloch, 1911). The word feerie or fay-erie in modern French means land, realm, enchantment, or where the enchantment took place. The land of enchantment or fairyland is where dwell the fays or fee of medieval France. The faie or fee found in Old French originate with the fata of Late Latin meaning one of the fates or tutelary and guardian spirits.

Fairies

• Characteristics
  • The popular conception of a fairy is that of a very small diminutive, sometimes tiny, creature resembling a pygmy. They are often shown as angelic, young or childlike, who are sometimes winged human-like winged sylphs. However, they can also be depicted as short, wizened troll-like gnomic figures with red or green eyes, or as tall handsome beings. Fairies have therefore a variable size, which they can change or appear as birds and animals. In appearance some accounts describe the fairy as having the stature of a year-old child who nonetheless resembles a bearded old man, which is rooted in beliefs in ancestral spririts. In appearance and disposition sometimes they are beautiful, sometimes they are hideous, as shown by spriggans of Cornwall, or the Northumbrian duergans. It is often the case of the female beautiful fairy being contrasted with the ugly male fairy, as with the Irish merrows.
  • In folklore fairies are described as humanoid with magical powers and the ability to shape-shift, with a propensity for malice and mischief whose origins are even demonic. It is also believed that fairies cannot tell lies. It is among the fairy lore of the Celtic peoples there occurs the widespread theme of a race of ‘little people’ who were driven underground by invading tribes.
  • Fairies are attributed with ability to become invisible at their own choosing, and affected by donning a magic cap, cloak or using certain herbs, and thus they can “…disappear, change their shape, and appear as human beings…” . This fairy characteristic is bestowed by their power of glamour, shape-shifting and casting illusions.”. The word ‘glamour’ was a Scottish term introduced into English literature that means magical, fantastic with the ability to juggle with the sight. In other words glamour Is a magical charm cast by devils, wizards, a coup d’oiel in order to deceive the eye of the receiver.
  • These diminutive beings are also deemed extremely long-lived if not immortal, as well as being “…dangerously amorous and have a tricksy love of practical jokes.”. Their domain is regarded as being underground, a subterranean abode in tumuli, barrows, under hills or even beneath rocks and stones, and as ghosts “…haunt waste places, caves, rocks, ruins, and waterfalls, to have homes beneath lakes and to be associated with uncanny objects such as snakes, will-o-the-wisps, megalithic monuments…”
  • Fairies, however, rarely harm mortal humans which includes those they abduct or lure to fairyland. Nonetheless a mistreated fairy is not incapable of retaliation by spoiling crops and setting fire to a household. The relationships between faerie and mortals can be further appreciated by the stories about fairy and mistress lovers which in literary terms often possess a drama and poesy. Such fairy stories have an established pattern of four main strands of:
    • (1) A human loves a supernatural;
    • (2) The spirit or fairy consents to the human dependent upon certain conditions and provisos;
    • (3) The human eventually breaks the agreed taboo and loses his fairy lover, finally;
    • (4) The lover attempts to retrieve or recapture the loved one, sometimes being successful. A similar set of conditions apply to fairy tales about fairy mistresses. A complication arising out of such an arrangement of a human-fairy marriage time that has lapsed. The sad result is that both time and age rapidly cat or liaison is the wish to catch up with the human lover.

Lunar Significance

• Association with Diana (the goddess of virginity)
• Most of the dramatic action of the play takes place at night
• The play takes place on the eve of a new moon, "the waning moon"
• Lunar cycles correlate to changing nature of love and relationships
  • Introduction of the significance of the moon is at the beginning of the play with Theseus' carnal desire for Hippolyta, citing the waning moon "[lingering] his desires"
  • Egeus cites Lysander singing to Hermia "by moonlight"
  • As Pyramus, Bottom has his earnest speech toward the moon in the play
  • Theseus uses the moon as the timetable for Hermia to make her decision regarding her fate
• Association with primal desires
• Relation to ideas of "lunacy" and influence of the moon on normal behavior

Cultural Significance:

• Queen Elizabeth I was known as the "moon goddess" due to her association with virginity (again, association with Diana)

Mustardseed:

• The plant:
  • Info
• Biblical Reference to Mark 4:30-32:
  • “[Jesus] said, ‘With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth, yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.’ ”