1. Before we get into the finer points of the play, let us discuss its layout. How is A Midsummer Night’s Dream structured? Is there anything unusual in its treatment of the five-act dramatic form? What is the significance of its opening scene?

2. Discuss the role of the play-within-a-play in act 5 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Does The Tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe have any bearing on the main story, or is it simply a comical interlude?

3. At the beginning of the lecture, we noticed that no single, all-important narrative string can be identified. In other words, A Midsummer Night’s Dream seems to be lacking a main plot. Instead we have an array of subplots winding their way through the story and in and out of the enchanted forest and the green world. Do we have similar problems discerning a main character, a protagonist? Who are our likely contenders: Theseus, Helen, Bottom, Oberon, or, perhaps, Puck? Who would you say dominates the mood of the play? Use passages from the text to compare at least two possible characters for the role of hero/heroine and formulate an argument that convincingly supports the candidacy of one over the other.

4. Compare and contrast the various character groups. I suggest the following sets: Theseus/Hippolyta; Hermia/Lysander/Helen/Demetrius; Bottom/amateur actors; Oberon/Puck; Bottom/Titania; Oberon/Titania. How are these parties different from or similar to each other? What makes each group special? What makes them the same? Does it matter that some remain within the city walls while most roam through the forest at night? Are some of the characteristics of the forest carried over to the city in the end—or vice versa?

5. Compare and contrast the three worlds represented in A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Athens, the woods, and the fairy realm. Examine the boundaries, limitations, and the significance of each of these three worlds in the play and explain how they are related.

6. Critics argue that the characters of the Athenian lovers are underdeveloped and not well differentiated from one another—that Hermia is quite like Helena (even down to her name) and that Demetrius resembles Lysander. Do you think that this is the case, or do you think that the lovers emerge as individuals? Provide examples of their individuality and uniqueness. If you believe that these characters are quite similar to one another, what do you think Shakespeare’s intent was in making them so?

7. What role do Theseus and Hippolyta play in A Midsummer Night’s Dream? Why is it important that they remain within the city walls and are largely absent from the play’s main action?

8. Much of the lecture above examines the creation and the capriciousness of the dream within the play. Examine how setting contributes to the creation of this dream and how the play’s atmosphere imbues it with a dreamlike quality. For your answer, consider at least two distinct settings in the play and explain how the development of each reflects the play’s narrative mode and affects its overall mood.

9. In the context of The Comedy of Errors, we examined the role of the Abbess Emilia as a supernatural mediator. If you have not heard the term before, I would now like to label her as the story’s deus ex machina, the “god from a machine.” Can we find a similar character in this play? Be sure to support your choice with examples from the text that can substantiate your claim.

10. In the context of Titus Andronicus, we talked about the significance of Aaron’s and Tamora’s status as outsiders to Roman society. Shakespeare seemed to exploit those character traits that marked them as alien/barbarian, and to juxtapose them with the allegedly noble/civilized characters of Roman citizens. Might Hippolyta’s Amazonian background bear some significance on this play? Explain.

11. A Midsummer Night’s Dream thrives on rhymed verse. Only a few speeches are delivered in blank verse, and even fewer in prose. Identify at least one example of each type of diction pattern: prose, blank verse, and rhyme, and compare them with each other. In your response to this prompt, address the ways in which Shakespeare uses diction (prose, blank verse, and rhyme) to differentiate between characters (i.e., fairies and mortals; nobility and rustics) and to create specific moods (i.e., solemnity or silliness). What is the effect of each individual speech pattern on the action immediately surrounding the three excerpts you have chosen?

12. Examine some of the image patterns that run through the play. You might want to look at the moon, the night, sleep, or the reliability of one’s sensory perceptions. Choose one or two and trace them through the various scenes of the play. How are they used and to what purpose? What is their overall effect on and significance to the play’s plot and atmosphere?

13. Consider the two courts, fairy and Athenian. What are the major characteristics of each? How do Oberon and Theseus compare? Oberon, the fairy king, is a character borrowed from the French Romance tradition; Theseus is a hero of ancient Greece. Why use these two types of rulers?

14. Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, is a character from English folklore. “Google” his legendary history and origin. (Note: http://www.boldoutlaw.com/puckrobin/puck.html is a good Web source for the history of Robin Goodfellow.) What is he doing in a fairy court with lesser fairies who sound like nature spirits, and a king derived from French tales? How are we to take the fact that Puck’s enchantment of Demetrius is allowed to continue at the end of the play?

15. What is the point of the subplot with the clowns? What is Bottom’s “dream”? Why does he want to make it into a show?

16. What is the point of the play-within-the-play? It is thought that A Midsummer Night’s Dream was originally performed at a court wedding. Pyramus and Thisbe is likewise performed to celebrate a royal wedding. In act 5, we are watching an audience watch a play that is like the play that we are watching as an audience. What does this parallelism suggest?

17. What is the significance of Puck’s epilogue? What does it mean for us to accept the play as a dream?

18. According to Theseus, “The lover, and the poet / Are of imagination all compact.” How are love and imagination similar in this play, in terms of a) their effects, b) the ways in which they operate, c) the way in which they manipulate feelings and sensory perceptions, and d) the way in which they represent irrational and intangible powers?

19. Bottom’s “translation” into an ass is a kind of emblem for all of the transformations that occur in the play. What are these transformations? In the context of this prompt, consider also The Tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which retells Greek and Roman tales involving magical transformations.

20. Acts 1 and 5 take place in the real world of Athens (by day), acts 2, 3 and 4 in the fairy dream world of the woods outside the city (by night). How can each be characterized? Who governs each world? Which is ultimately more powerful? Can one world impact the other, tangibly and in reality?

21. Characterize the fairies and their magic. To what extent do they represent natural forces? To what extent is their “magic” a double of the playwright’s magic, which makes a “dream” or a vision come to life on the stage?