English 241:  Shakespeare's Plays

A Midsummer Night's Dream Study Questions

1.1

How is Hippolyta feeling at the opening of the play; is she as eager for the wedding day as Theseus or is she more negative about it; how do you know? Another way to ask this question is: What is Hippolyta’s subtext in this scene?

What do Theseus’s comments to Hermia about marriage suggest about accepted Elizabethan attitudes toward children and toward women?

How is Hermia feeling as she responds to Theseus's comment that "Demetrius is a worthy gentleman"?

How do you think Hippolyta is feeling as she hears Theseus, her husband to be, ordering another woman to marry someone whom she has not chosen? What might be the significance of Theseus’s question of her: "What cheer, my love"?

When they are left alone, Hermia and Lysander exchange laments about the obstacles to true love? What figure of speech do they use for their exchange?

Helena wishes that she might be "translated" into Hermia; words referring to change, such as "translated" and "transformed" form one of the leit motifs of this play; check "The Language of Poetry" in The Shakespeare Companion for the definition of this term.

What does Helena mean just a little later when she says that love can transform things "base and vile" to "form and dignity"?

When he begins to tell Helena what he and Hermia plan to do ("Helen, to you our minds we will unfold"), Lysander uses two images (see definition In "The Language of Poetry") that will figure prominently in this play. What are these images and how might they function in the play?

1.2

What is Bottom’s motivation in this scene?

What are two comic elements of the scene?

2.1

What kind of language (poetry or prose) is the little fairy speaking at the beginning of this scene? How many types of poetry have been used so far in the play? Have you noticed any scenes in prose? Why might Shakespeare shift from verse to prose or back again?

How is Robin Goodfellow, called Puck, portrayed in this scene?

In her "forgeries of jealousy" speech, what does Titania say are the effects of Oberon's brawling?

How does Oberon say that the flower "love-in-idleness," which we would call a pansy, got its magical powers?

How is Demetrius feeling toward Helena when we see them in this scene and what does he threaten to do to her?

At the very end of this scene, Oberon describes to his minion Puck where Puck might find Titania; he describes her bower in iterated imagery. What major image does he use?

2.2

As he and Hermia lie down to rest for the evening, what does Lysander propose? How successful is he?

Upon awakening with the magic juice in his eyes, Lysander immediately falls in love with Helena; what is Helena's response?

3.1

Is the language of the Rude Mechanicals in this scene in verse or prose? Why?

The rude mechanicals are concerned that the ladies in the audience might be frightened first of Pyramus's sword and then of the lion; they are also worried that the moon might not shine the night of their play. How do these concerns reveal their literal mindedness, their inability to distinguish between illusion?

and reality? How are these concerns an example of metatheatre?

How could Bottom's transformation be described as the literalization of a metaphor that might be used to describe him?

How might Bottom's response to Titania's attentions, "And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays," be taken as an expression of one theme of this play?

Titania’s phrase "enforced chastity" (3.2.192) is ambiguous; what two meanings might the phrase suggest?

What does Bottom’s conversation with the fairies reveal about the connection in the Elizabethan mind between fairies and nature?

3.2

What is Helena's response when Demetrius, now with the love juice in his eyes, also expresses love for her?

Why does Hermia blame Helena rather than Lysander for the fact that Lysander has shifted his attentions?

4.1

Judging by their language and actions at the beginning of this scene, should we assume that Titania and Bottom actually make love with each other?

Why? Why not?

At the end of this scene, Bottom describes his vision of Titania in Biblical (albeit confused) terms; what might be the function of this description?

5.1

Theseus's opening speech on the power of the imagination is central to an interpretation of this play. Exactly how does Theseus characterize the imagination? How might Theseus’s comments on the power of the imagination to influence lunatics, lovers, and poets be a comment on the central theme of this play?