Introduction – Part 1

Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream

In this twenty-part course, Professor John McRae (University of Nottingham) explores Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We begin with a broad introduction to historical, political, and intellectual context of late 16th-century England. After that, we go through the play scene by scene, providing close reading and detailed analysis, with commentary on character, plot, themes and motifs, language, symbolism – and more.

Note: We use the Arden edition of the play. Students using a different version of the play may encounter slight differences in both the text and line numbers.

Introduction – Part 1

In this lecture we begin our introduction to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, focusing in particular on: (i) where the play comes in Shakespeare’s career, and the plays that Shakespeare had written up to 1595/6; (ii) the prevalence of ‘metatheatre’ in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, particularly the play-within-a-play; (iii) the play’s balancing of genres, with tragedy turning into comedy (the play-within-a-play) and comedy almost turning into tragedy (the main action of the play); (iv) the connected concepts of free, forbidden and forced love – both in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and in other works by Shakespeare; and (v) love in Shakespeare, including love that ends in death (Romeo and Juliet), love that destroys the world (Antony and Cleopatra), love that has to be rejected (Hamlet) and the love (or lack of it) that exists between father and daughter (King Lear).