Quotes and Possible Essay Questions for A Midsummer Night's Dream

Quotations:

1. "You have her father's love, Demetrius; Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him." (Lysander, 1.1)

2. "The course of true love never did run smooth. . ." (Lysander, 1.1)

3. "Let me play the lion too. I will roar that I will do any man's heart good to hear me." (Bottom, 1.2)

4. "Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania." (Oberon, 2.1)

5. "Set your heart at rest. / The fairy land buys not the child of me." (Titania, 2.1)

6. "I'll put a girdle round about the earth / In forty minutes." (Puck, 2.1)

7. "I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius, / The more you beat me, I will fawn on you." (Helena, 2.1)

8. "I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, / Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows. . ." (Oberon, 2.1)

9. "Wake when some vile thing is near." (Oberon, 2.2)

10. "Wherefore was I to this keen mockery born? / When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?" (Helena, 2.2)

11. "Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound, / A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire. . ." (Puck, 3.1)

12. "I pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again: / Mine ear is much enamoured of thy note. . ." (Titania, 3.1)

13. "Get you gone, you dwarf. . ." (Lysander, 3.2)

14. "Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells. . ." (Theseus, 4.1)

15. "The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen. . ." (Bottom, 4.1)

16. "The lunatic, the lover and the poet / Are of imagination all compact." (Theseus, 5.1)

17. "This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard." (Hippolyta, 5.1)

18. "The best in this kind are but shadows; and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them." (Theseus, 5.1)

Possible Essay Questions:

1. Discuss the significance of the play within a play, the mirroring subplots, and the levels of awareness to the main theme of Midsummer.

2. Imagination is used in dream, in play, in love, and in art. Discuss these uses of the imagination as they appear in Midsummer.

3. Compare and contrast the RSC and BBC productions of Midsummer. What would you keep and what would you change to produce an ideal production? How would this reflect your interpretation of the play?

4. Compare the fairies, the young lovers, the mechanicals, or Theseus and Hippolyta in at least three productions of the play.

5. Select any film version of Midsummer and discuss its interpretation in lavish and loving detail.

6. Compare and contrast Midsummer and The Tempest.

7. Discuss the parallel plots in the play as a means of holding four very different groups (and at least as many separate themes) together.

8. Discuss the journey through the strange land of the self that the young lovers and others made in Midsummer. In what ways are they changed, what essences are revealed, and what is Shakespeare saying about misleading appearance and ultimate reality?

9. Discuss the internal danger and the external perils which afflict Shakespeare's lovers in Midsummer. Be sure to mention doting and comic mirrors.