A Midsummer Night's Dream assimilates this concept of transformation with images of vision and appearance, dreams, and that of a fantasy world that augments and characterizes the transformation of a particular character, scene, or the entire play. Appearance and physical vision plays one of the most important roles in defining this play and its characters. ... This statement seems to imply that Egeus prefers Demetrius because of his assumed materialistic endowments and his social status and thus, Lysander must compete with the physical, such as possessions and status, but not love. ...

• Word Count: 1500
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

During Elizabethan times, 1550-1625, a great writer's explosive way of writing brought forth a new life to poetry. This outstanding poet, author and playwright, was William Shakespeare. These highly subjective sonnets are wonderful tales full of love, deception, and betrayal. Although it is presu...

• Word Count: 3329
• Approx Pages: 13
• Grade Level: High School

A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of Shakespeare's early "festive comedies,"" written around 1595-6. Despite the many thematic references to "dreams- and the fantastic setting of the Athenian forest, the play also contains a fair amount of commentary on Shakespeare's contemporary English world. The play's title, for instance, refers to an English holiday custom: on "Midsummer Eve,"" or the night of the summer solstice on June 23, English men and women would spend the night outdoors around bonfires, telling supernatural tales of fairies and witchcraft. The play not only ...

• Word Count: 10864
• Approx Pages: 43
• Grade Level: High School

Act I, scene i Summary The course of true love never did run smooth... At his palace, Theseus, Duke of Athens, and Hippolyta, his fiancée, discuss their wedding, to be held in four days, under the new moon. Impatient for the event and in a celebratory mood, Theseus orders Philostrate, his Master of the Revels, to "stir up the Athenian youth to merriments" and devise entertainments with which the couple might pass the time until their wedding (I.i.12). Philostrate takes his leave, and Theseus promises Hippolyta that though he wooed her with his sword (Hippolyta, Queen o...

• Word Count: 4960
• Approx Pages: 20
• Grade Level: High School