Talk:A Midsummer Night's Dream

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where was it first performed?

The theatre! it was first performed in the theatre.

According to [1]:

On account of the central theme of marriages, and the inclusion of a royal wedding, it is thought that Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer Night's Dream in celebration of a particular wedding. Exactly whose wedding is the matter of scholarly debate, as is the exact date of the play's writing and first performance. It is believed to come from Shakespeare's lyric period of 1594-1596, due to the writing style and also to references in the play to events of that time.

It is defined to a pretty broad time period. ✏ Sverdrup 16:41, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I can't find any source backing up the assertion it was Sir Thomas Berkeley's wedding. Can anyone else factcheck this? Lotsofissues 08:36, 8 May 2005 (UTC)

How about a scene by scene breakdown on the play?

Contents 1 Synopsis 2 Movie adaptations 3 Intro? 3.1 Comic Strip Adaptation 3.2 Weird redirect 4 Date and Sources 5 In universe 6 Demetrius

[edit] Synopsis

I think the opening of the Synopsis section should be re-written. It should say in the opening sentence that the play is set in the Greek city of Athens. At the moment it mentions that Theseus is Duke of Athens, but nowhere in the synopsis does it mention where the play is set. JP Godfrey 09:02, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Movie adaptations

I have linked the dates in all the versions to the pages on www.imdb.com for that version. I did not use the imdb template because I thought it would be neater just linking from the dates instead of having "A Midsummer Night's Dream at The Internet Movie Database" under every sub-section of that section. JP Godfrey 10:37, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Added A Midsummer Night's Rave, someone who's seen the movie recently might consider adding some detail though.

[edit] Intro?

This article lacks an intro which would provide a short overview of the contents. Zocky | picture popups 14:52, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Good point, it has one now! Please improve it as you see fit. The Singing Badger 16:13, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Comic Strip Adaptation

There is an adaptation of this play ongoing at this time in the comic strip "Pibgorn" by Brooke McEldowney tharkun860 05:19, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Weird redirect

Currently 'Midsummer Night's Dream' leads to a page about a rather dodgy looking Japanese animated film. Somehow I think Shakespeare's works will be searched for more than the dubiously renowned 'Oh My Goddess' series, so I'd heartily suggest a switch around of the search priorities. I'd do it myself, but I'm not quite sure how.

• I think it's fine as it is. That article really is called Midsummer Night's Dream: it's not a redirect, and it has a prominent link to Shakespeare's play right at the top of the page. AndyJones 20:10, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I'm not doubting the validity of the other page, and the redirect is quite helpful, just suggesting a disambiguation page - after all, as you note, the titles are the same aside from the indefinite article. I'm not going to go for some prampant snobbish approach claiming that some inherent superiority of SHakespeare over all over works of art - it would just be handy and rather less confusing for the searcher to be given a choice of Dreams. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.67.115.253 (talk • contribs) .

[edit] Date and Sources

Copying the following directly from the article space. I think we need to work through this piece by piece before it's accepted on the page. As it is, it's too ungrammatical to go in, and the previous version is better:

While some claim "there is no known source for the plot of A Midsummer Night's Dream, although individual elements can be traced to classical literature; for example, the story of Pyramus and Thisbe is told in Ovid's Metamorphoses and the transformation of Bottom into an ass is descended from Apuleius' The Golden Ass; Shakespeare would have studied both texts at school, if he had attended a school, which cannot be proven.

On the other hand, A Midsummer Night's Dreamis well established to base on North's translation of Plutarch Lives in this case on the Life of Theseus, see more under the heading of "Shakespeare." [[2]]

It is also known, as G. B. Harrison notes in his commentary in his Complete Works, to base on the baptism of Prince Henry of Scotland, an event that took place on the 20/30 August 1594.

Indeed Dream's primary plot, concerning Theseus and his laws or constitution of Athens, is primarily a distillation of North's study of Theseus's life. Diplomatic historians and scholars of Scottish history, foremost of which remains Otto J. Scott, know that King James VI. of Scotland, later James I., consolidated the rule of Scotland that same year, through new laws and that he like Theseus held a contest for the celebration of Prince Henry's baptism.

Scott reports James even addressed invitations, wrote some of the masques and appeared in one himself, as a "Knight of Malta." So under the surface there is a strong, tangible historic connection between Dream, King James VI, Prince Henry and Theseus. Strong enough to assure those who look beneath the surface that Dream was brimming with political undertows, as had been Marlowe's Edward II and Hamlet, both of which are oblique studies of James VI. Since this knowledge of James and Scotland was then closely held diplomatic intelligence, communicated in alphanumeric cipher, examples of which are extant, it is difficult to understand how Shakespeare came by this intelligence, but rather simple to suppose how Marlowe, as Burghley "spy" and Scottish projector, came by his information.

In any case, "Shakespeare" contrives to signal us of his debt to North by having Dream enter history on the 8th of October 1600, or on the same day and month that North claimed Athens celebrated Theseus's return on [51].

It's part of a remarkable registration cycle linking works of Marlowe and Shakespeare to dates of importance to the works in question or to events in Marlowe's life. For example, Marlowe's Edward II entered history on the 6th of July or on the same day it's action opens on, the first Friday of the month, Edward I having died on that same day in 1307.

"Shakespeare's" 1 Henry VI, which wasn't entered until 1623, entered on the 8th of November, or the day its action proposed "young Henry King." Francis Meres, like Marlowe a Cambridge scholar, who had written Wits Treasury, contrived on the 7th of September 1598 to have it entered on Elizabeth I.'s birthday. Someone was tracking dates.

The play contains dramatic exchanges between a scholar named "Baldock" and his mentor, a courtier, named "Spenser" or "Spencer," wherein Baldock confesses to his mentor that he'd lost his position as "reader" to the King's "niece," which he'd had "since she was a child," by through which he'd "hope[d] ... by her means to be preferd." (II.2.29-30) Upon which Spenser advices his young friend, "Then, Baldock, you must cast the scholler off." (32) This appears to allude to Marlowe's employment as "attendant" and "reader" to Lady Arbella Stuart [[3]], which he lost in September 1592.

In any case, Edward II, first entered history on 6 July 1593, the first Friday, a month or so after Marlowe was reportedly slain in Deptford, Kent. Yet it entered history on the same day it's action opens on, Edward's father having died on 7 July 1307, also the first Friday. Marlowe's and Shakespeare's plays entered history either on days of importance to the action or to Marlowe.

For example three works said Shakespeare's, Pericles, Anthony and Cleopatra and the Sonnets, all entered history on the 20/30 of May, in consecutive years, under the hands of separate publishers. Marlowe was released from the Privy Council's summons on the 20th and supposedly died on the 30th. The Sonnets, which were excluded from "Shakespeare's" canon by the anonymous editors of the [[4]], chronicle Marlowe's life, "death," resurrection and exile, a biography, of the contenders, that fits only Marlowe.

So the registration date of Dream is of paramount importance to studies of the play, as is its oblique Scottish context. Diplomatic historians understand it, while Stratfordians claim not to.

I'll come back later in the day to review this. In the meantime I'll revert to the previous version. AndyJones 12:26, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

For ease of reference, here's the diff. AndyJones 12:37, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

• Starting to break this down:

1. Opening sentence: no change to content, introduces a grammatical error ("While" with no balancing clause). Better before.
2. Cannot be proved Shakespeare went to school. Depends where you come from: the author of the plays clearly went to school (or, at least, he'd clearly learned his Ovid somewhere) so only an anti-Stratfordian would consider this point worth making. May I suggest that we agree that in this article we are using "Shakespeare" to mean "whoever wrote the play", a convention which I understand to be acceptable to Stratfordians and Anti-Stratfordians (who call the man from Stratford-upon-Avon "Shaksper"). In that context, this change is unnecessary, too.
3. Next paragraph is true in factual content: Shakespeare probably knew of Theseus from North's Plutarch's Lives. It's very badly expressed here, though. Sorry, but the existing article makes the point with better grammar. The link isn't a good one, but if it were necessary it should be done with a wikilink: we don't use full hypertext links between pages of wikipedia.
4. Having said that, the text linked to is extremely bizarre. See this diff, which I have reverted.
5. G. B. Harrison's point. Don't get it. How can somebody's baptism possibly be a source? Is anyone able to check what Harrison really said, and let us know whether it's worthy of inclusion in the article. As written it's nonsense, I'm afraid.
6. That brings us to two lengthy paragraphs about an alleged Theseus/James/Henry link. It is too hard to understand what is being said. Does anyone want to look up Scott to find out if he says anything worth citing in this article?
7. Unfortunately, this essay then wanders further out into the left field, with all this stuff about dates. I've read it, but I've no idea what the blippity-flip the editor is trying to tell us. Suppose all these dates are true... but I'm not going there. This isn't mainstream scholarship. What are footnotes like "[51]" and "(36)" telling us? And 1H6 doesn't have characters called Baldock and Spenser. And Edward II is Marlowe not Shakespeare...
8. ...which brings us to the point: that this essay is here to demonstrate that Marlowe wrote Shakespeare. Well, ho hum. I can only say that if the Marlovian case is this bad, it's no wonder it's not become widely accepted.

• Sorry, I've lost patience with this. Also I'm on wiki-holiday for a week. Does anyone have anything to say in favour of this edit? AndyJones 22:45, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
• PS, I've found Baldock and Spenser: they're in Edward II. AndyJones 22:53, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] In universe

This article reads like a plot summary of A Midsummer Night's Dream. As per Manual of Style, the article should concentrate on explaining and dicussing, rather simply repeating, the plot. See Twelfth Night, or What You Will for an example of better writing. smurrayinchester^{(User), (Talk)} 15:15, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

The Dream synopsis tells you what happens in the play. The Twelfth Night synopsis explains a few things that happen in the play without much detail and includes some vague, avowedly unresearched comments about the play's setting. Could you be clearer about why this is better? The Singing Badger 16:27, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Singing Badger. Apart from being rather less in-universe, I cannot see any reason why Twelfth Night should be hailed as a model article to emulate. AndyJones 18:05, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

No, I'll go further. I've just re-read it and Twelfth Night is too short, and is quite a poorly written article. Here's my proposal: let's conspire to make Twelfth Night a great article which we can proudly point wikipedians to and ask them to emulate. Anyone with me? AndyJones 18:58, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm with you in an I'm-actually-too-busy kind of way. :) We definitely need one stand-out Shakespeare play article. Frankly, they're all abysmal. The Singing Badger 19:11, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree; there's no all round good Shakespeare on Wikipedia; either it's like Romeo and Juliet, which has the information, but is long, waffling and often trivial, or it's like Twelfth Night; more encyclopaedic, but shorter. smurrayinchester^{(User), (Talk)} 20:02, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Demetrius

Demetrius isn't in the "characters" list?