"A Midsummer Night's Dream A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy written by William Shakespeare in 1595/96. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of Theseus, the Duke of Athens, to Hippolyta, the former queen of the Amazons. These include the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of six amateur actors (the mechanicals) who are controlled and manipulated by the fairies who inhabit the forest in which most of the play is set. The play is one of Shakespeare's most popular works for the stage and is widely performed across the world. The play consists of four"
"to understand the love and self-sacrifice of Pyramus and Thisbe. In 1968, Stephen Fender offered his own views on the play. He emphasised the ""terrifying power"" of the fairies and argued that they control the play's events. They are the most powerful figures featured, not Theseus as often thought. He also emphasised the ethically ambivalent characters of the play. Finally, Fender noted a layer of complexity in the play. Theseus, Hippolyta, and Bottom have contradictory reactions to the events of the night, and each has partly valid reasons for their reactions, implying that the puzzles offered to the play's audience"
"continues to love Helena. And Titania is still in love with Bottom the donkey. Oberon leads all the fairies away with the changeling at his side. Having achieved his goals, Oberon releases Titania from her spell and they leave together in love once again. Following Oberon's instructions, Puck removes the donkey's head from Bottom, and arranges everything so that Hermia, Lysander, Demetrius, and Helena all believe that they have been dreaming when they awaken. Together they return from the forest to attend the wedding of Duke Theseus and Hippolyta. When Theseus sees Hermia and her father Egeus, and seeing that"
"reality in the play that make possible ""that pleasing, narcotic dreaminess associated with the fairies of the play"". By emphasising this theme, even in the setting of the play, Shakespeare prepares the reader's mind to accept the fantastic reality of the fairy world and its happenings. This also seems to be the axis around which the plot conflicts in the play occur. Hunt suggests that it is the breaking down of individual identities that leads to the central conflict in the story. It is the brawl between Oberon and Titania, based on a lack of recognition for the other in"
"Davies) and Tytania (Anna Christy) as teachers and Puck and the fairies as schoolboys. Oberon's relationship with Puck (Jamie Manton) is given overtly sexual overtones, and Puck responds with alternate anger and despair to Oberon's new-found interest in Tytania's Changeling boy. The silent older man who stalks the action in the first two acts is revealed to be Theseus (Paul Whelan); reviewers have suggested that in this staging Theseus himself was once the object of Oberon's attentions, and is either watching history repeating itself, or is in fact daydreaming the magical events of the opera prior to his marriage to"
"outside Athens, Oberon (Victor Jory), the king of the fairies, and Titania (Anita Louise) his queen, are having an argument. Titania tells Oberon that she plans to stay there to attend the wedding of Duke Theseus and Hippolyta. Oberon and Titania are estranged because she refuses to give her Indian changeling to Oberon for use as his knight, since the child's mother was one of Titania's worshippers. Wanting to punish Titania's disobedience, Oberon instructs his mischievous court jester Puck (Mickey Rooney) to retrieve a flower called ""love-in-idleness"". Originally a white flower, it turns purple when struck by Cupid's bow. When"
"a rift between all four that culminates (famously in this adaptation) in a mud-wrestling scene. Oberon then bewitches Titania with the same potion. Meanwhile, an acting troupe prepares a play for the entertainment of the Duke. The leader of the actors (Roger Rees) and the actors, including a weaver named Bottom (Kevin Kline), and Francis Flute (Sam Rockwell) take their rehearsal to the forest. The mischievous Puck magically enchants Bottom with the head of an ass and Bottom is then seen by the bewitched Titania. Titania woos Bottom in her bower, attended by fairies. Oberon tires of the sport and"
"players gather to produce a stage play about the cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe in honor of the Duke and his upcoming marriage to Hippolyta (Verree Teasdale). Quince reads the names of characters and bestows them to the players. Nick Bottom (James Cagney), who is playing the main role of Pyramus, is overly-enthusiastic and suggests himself for the characters of Thisbe, the Lion, and Pyramus at the same time. He would also prefer being a tyrant and recites some lines of Ercles. Quince ends the meeting instructing his players to meet at the Duke's oak tree. In the forest"
"were also unusual casting choices. It had been traditional for the fairies to be played by children or women, but Brook cast adult men instead, an effect described as ""disconcertingly strange and threatening"", and which made the forest a more frightening, adult place than in earlier productions. Brook also decided to double the roles of Theseus/Oberon, Hippolyta/Titania, Philostrate/Puck and Egeus/Quince. This was partly to create a smaller, more intimate company, but also to suggest that the fairies were not so much different characters, as different aspects of the human characters' personalities, an idea signified when Theseus and Hippolyta 'became' Oberon"
"for the characters of Thisbe, the Lion, and Pyramus at the same time. He would also rather be a tyrant and recites some lines of Ercles. Bottom is told by Quince that he would do the Lion so terribly as to frighten the duchess and ladies enough for the Duke and Lords to have the players hanged. Snug remarks that he needs the Lion's part because he is ""slow of study"". Quince ends the meeting with ""at the Duke's oak we meet"". In a parallel plot line, Oberon, king of the fairies, and Titania, his queen, have come to the"
"interconnecting plots, connected by a celebration of the wedding of Duke Theseus of Athens and the Amazon queen, Hippolyta, which are set simultaneously in the woodland and in the realm of Fairyland, under the light of the moon. The play opens with Hermia, who is in love with Lysander, resistant to her father Egeus's demand that she wed Demetrius, whom he has arranged for her to marry. Helena, Hermia's best friend, pines unrequitedly for Demetrius, who broke up with her to be with Hermia. Enraged, Egeus invokes an ancient Athenian law before Duke Theseus, whereby a daughter needs to marry"
"""The Pillars of the Earth"". It is also a prominent setting in Elizabeth George's novel ""This Body of Death"". Oberon, Titania and the other Shakespearean fairies live in a rapidly diminishing Sherwood Forest whittled away by urban development in the fantasy novel A Midsummer's Nightmare by Garry Kilworth. On Midsummer's Eve, a most auspicious day, the fairies embark on the long journey to the New Forest in Hampshire where the fairies' magic will be restored to its former glory. The following out-of-copyright books can be read online or downloaded: Extracts from the above texts have been brought together by the"
"L. Calderwood offered a new view on the role of Oberon. He viewed the king as specialising in the arts of illusion. Oberon, in his view, is the interior dramatist of the play, orchestrating events. He is responsible for the play's happy ending, when he influences Theseus to overrule Egeus and allow the lovers to marry. Oberon and Theseus bring harmony out of discord. He also suggested that the lovers' identities, which are blurred and lost in the forest, recall the unstable identities of the actors who constantly change roles. In fact the failure of the artisans' play is based"
"in love with Bottom (now equipped with his ass' head), much to Oberon's gratification. A Nymph sings of the pleasures and torments of love (""If love's a sweet passion"") and after several dances, Titania and Bottom are entertained by the foolish, loving banter of two haymakers, Corydon and Mopsa. It begins after Titania has been freed from her enchantment, commencing with a brief divertissement to celebrate Oberon's birthday (""Now the Night"", and the abovementioned ""Let the fifes and the clarions""), but for the most part it is a masque of the god Phoebus (""When the cruel winter"") and the Four"
"subjugating himself. By the end of the play, Hippolyta has added to her power, becoming the queen of a new realm, Athens. The character of Hippolyta also appears in ""The Two Noble Kinsmen"", a play co-written by Shakespeare and John Fletcher. Hippolyta In Classical Greek mythology, Hippolyta (; ""Hippolyte"") was the Amazonian queen who possessed a magical girdle that was given to her by her father, Ares, the god of war. The girdle was a waist belt that signified her authority as queen of the Amazons. She figures prominently in the myths of both Heracles and Theseus. The myths about"
"Richard Mulcaster, Harry, Sam and Henry Condell Nat as Puck. Gil as Oberon. David Roper as Bottom. Ray Danza as Theseus. Joe Wilson as Hippolyta. Alan Wong as Titania. Eric as Fairy. ""King of Shadows"" was adapted for the stage in 2005 and first performed by the New York State Theatre Institute (NYSTI) starring P. J. Verhoest as Nat, David Bunce as Shakespeare, John Romeo as Burbage, and Aaron Marquise as Roper. King of Shadows King of Shadows is a children's historical novel by Susan Cooper published in 1999 by Penguin In the United Kingdom, it was a finalist for"
"Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta. These include the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of six amateur actors, who are controlled and manipulated by the fairies who inhabit the forest in which most of the story is set. The play, which is categorized as a comedy, is one of Shakespeare's most popular works for the stage and is widely performed across the world. Felix Mendelssohn's music was extensively used, as re-orchestrated by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The ballet sequences featuring the fairies were choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska. Part one A beautiful young woman named Hermia (Olivia de Havilland)"
"rehearse a play in honour of the duke's betrothal to Hippolyta. Back in the forest, Titania, Queen of Fairies (Florence Turner), quarrels with Penelope, who avenges herself by sending Puck (Gladys Hulette) away with a magic herb, which, dabbed on the eyes of a sleeping person, shall make the ""victim"" fall in love with the first person to appear after awakening. Soon, Lysander and Demetrius are smitten with the wrong girls and Titania has fallen in love with Bottom, the egotistical leader of the tradesmen, whom Puck has turned into an ass (donkey). When Penelope discovers all this mischief, she"
"drastically, as it at first upsets the balance of love and creates asymmetrical love among the four Athenian lovers. The fact that this flower introduces magical love to this play creates the potential for many possible outcomes for this play. The juice of the ""heartsease"" now, claims Oberon, ""on sleeping eyelids laid, Will make or man or woman madly dote Upon the next live creature that it sees."" Equipped with such powers, Oberon and Puck control the fates of various characters in the play to provide Shakespeare's essential dramatic and comic structure for the play. The love-in-idleness was originally a"
"Hippolytus (play) Hippolytus (, ""Hippolytos"") is an Ancient Greek tragedy by Euripides, based on the myth of Hippolytus, son of Theseus. The play was first produced for the City Dionysia of Athens in 428 BC and won first prize as part of a trilogy. Euripides first treated the myth in a previous play, ""Hippolytos Kalyptomenos"" ( – ""Hippolytus Veiled""), which is now lost; what is known of it is based on echoes found in other ancient writings. The earlier play, and the one that has survived are both titled ""Hippolytus"", but in order to distinguish the two they have traditionally"
"Phaedra. The second aspect is what the play refers to as sophrosyne, which is represented by Artemis and personified by Hippolytus. Sophrosyne can be defined in part as being chaste, pure, clear-headed and untainted by sexual desire. Hippolytus (play) Hippolytus (, ""Hippolytos"") is an Ancient Greek tragedy by Euripides, based on the myth of Hippolytus, son of Theseus. The play was first produced for the City Dionysia of Athens in 428 BC and won first prize as part of a trilogy. Euripides first treated the myth in a previous play, ""Hippolytos Kalyptomenos"" ( – ""Hippolytus Veiled""), which is now lost;"
"play uses the principle of ""discordia concors"" in several of its key scenes. Theseus and Hippolyta represent marriage and, symbolically, the reconciliation of the natural seasons or the phases of time. Hippolyta's story arc is that she must submit to Theseus and become a matron. Titania has to give up her motherly obsession with the changeling boy and passes through a symbolic death, and Oberon has to once again woo and win his wife. Kehler notes that Zimbardo took for granted the female subordination within the obligatory marriage, social views that were already challenged in the 1960s. In 1971, James"
"He sees Theseus as a Tudor noble; Helena a mere plot device to ""concentrate the four lovers on a single spot""; and the ""Pyramus and Thisbe"" play-within-the-play a parody of a prominent ""topos"" of contemporary plays. Summing up their contributions, Kehler writes: ""This is recognizably modern criticism."" The 20th century brought new insights into the play. In 1961, Elizabeth Sewell argued that Shakespeare aligns himself not with the aristocrats of the play, but with Bottom and the artisans. It is their task to produce a wedding entertainment, precisely the purpose of the writer on working in this play. Also in"
"up the largest subsection known as the Fair Youth Sonnets (1-126). The other three internal sequences of note are the Procreation sequence (1-17), the Rival Poet sequence (78-86) and the Dark Lady sequence (127-154). The two most likely candidates for the Fair Youth are Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, an early patron of Shakespeare, and William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, a later patron. Duncan-Jones argues that Pembroke is the more likely candidate. She also suggests that John Davies of Hereford, Samuel Daniel, George Chapman, and Ben Jonson are all plausible candidates for the role of Rival Poet in"
"the forest outside Athens Oberon, king of the fairies, and his queen, Titania, have quarrelled because she refuses to give him her Indian changeling boy as an attendant. Oberon seeks to punish Titania's defiance; he sends his servant, the mischievous fairy Puck, to find a flower called ""love-in-idleness"". The juice from this flower, if squeezed on a sleeping person's eyelids, makes the victim fall in love with the first living thing seen on awakening. Oberon intends to humiliate Titania by making her fall in love with some monster of the forest. Into the forest come a group of workmen, the"
"Theseus as the voice of Shakespeare himself and the speech as a call for imaginative audiences. He also viewed Bottom as a lucky man on whom Fortune showered favours beyond measure. He was particularly amused by the way Bottom reacts to the love of the fairy queen: completely unfazed. Maginn argued that ""Theseus would have bent in reverent awe before Titania. Bottom treats her as carelessly as if she were the wench of the next-door tapster."" Finally, Maginn thought that Oberon should not be blamed for Titania's humiliation, which is the result of an accident. He viewed Oberon as angry"
"a play in his story intending it to be presented in the lovers' story, as well as interacting with Titania in the fairies' story. While they are in the woods rehearsing, the fairy Puck, a mischievous sprite and minion of Oberon, king of the fairies, happens upon their rehearsal. He decides to have some fun with them, carrying out part of Oberon's orders in the process, and when Bottom exits the stage, he transforms his head into a donkey's. When Bottom returns, unaware of his own transformation, his fellow actors run away from him with Quince screaming, ""We are haunted!"""
"a suitor chosen by her father, or else face death. Theseus offers her another choice: lifelong chastity while worshipping the goddess Artemis as a nun. Peter Quince and his fellow players Nick Bottom, Francis Flute, Robin Starveling, Tom Snout and Snug plan to put on a play for the wedding of the Duke and the Queen, ""the most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe"". Quince reads the names of characters and bestows them on the players. Nick Bottom, who is playing the main role of Pyramus, is over-enthusiastic and wants to dominate others by suggesting himself"
"themes help to give the play something closer to a modern-day view than is often found in Shakespeare's plays. The play is centred on the class prejudices of middle-class England. The lower class is represented by characters such as Bardolph, Nym, and Pistol (Falstaff's followers), and the upper class is represented by Sir John Falstaff and Master Fenton. Shakespeare uses both Latin and misused English to represent the attitudes and differences of the people of this era. For example, much humor is derived from the exaggerated accents of Dr. Caius and Sir Hugh Evans. For example, Caius speaks in an"
"The Fair Maid of the Exchange The Fair Maid of the Exchange is a Renaissance play attributed to Thomas Heywood. First printed in 1607, the play was subsequently reprinted in 1625 and in 1637. It tells the story of three wealthy brothers – Ferdinand, Anthony, and Frank – who find themselves enamoured of Phyllis, the fair maid, and vie for her affections. Phyllis, however, is determined to win the favour of the Cripple of Fanchurch despite his indifference towards her. The play is set in Elizabethan London. The play is a city comedy, but can also be categorized as a"
"been given the names, ""Hippolytus Kalyptomenos"" (""Hippolytus veiled"") and ""Hippolytus Stephanophoros"" (""Hippolytus the wreath bearer""). It is thought that the contents to the missing ""Hippolytos Kalyptomenos"" portrayed a shamelessly lustful Phaedra who directly propositioned Hippolytus, which apparently offended the play's audience. Euripides revisits the myth in ""Hippolytos Stephanophoros"" ( – ""Hippolytus who wears a crown""), its title refers to the crown of garlands Hippolytus wears as a worshipper of Artemis. In this version Phaedra fights against her own sexual desires, which have been incited by Aphrodite. The play is set in Troezen, a coastal town in the north-eastern Peloponnese. Theseus,"
"versions: Paris, Juno, Venus, and Pallas all appear, along with Mercury, Cupid, Hymen, the Graces, the Hours, and a personified Delight. (The three Hours, Eunomia, Dike and Eirene, also appear in Shirley's ""The Triumph of Peace"".) The figures of the anti-masque are seven shepherds, Bottle, Crab, Clout, Toadstool, Shrub, Scrip, and Hobbinoll; as a group they resemble the comic Athenians in Shakespeare's ""Dream,"" with Bottle as Shirley's version of Bottom. The scene is set at Mount Ida, in keeping with the traditional story; the masque ends with Venus's victory in the contest of beauty, and makes no mention of the"
"draws upon the fairy lore of the folktales and legends of the British Isles, and so can be classed with similar works like Drayton's ""Nymphidia"". In the play, Loswello is the name of the fairy knight, while a silly politician called Politico is the pretender king of the fairies. The Fairy Knight The Fairy Knight, or Oberon the Second is an early Stuart era stage play, a comedy of uncertain and problematic authorship. Never published in its historical period, the play existed only in a manuscript, which is now MS. V.a.128 in the collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library in"