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A midsummer nights dream

The initial setting of the play's scenes is Athens under the reign of Theses and Hippolyta, who are themselves characters from ancient Greek mythology. But it must be understood that the "Athens" of A Midsummer Night's Dream is neither that of ancient Greece nor of its Renaissance counterpart, but an amalgamation of the former with the folk culture of Elizabethan England. After Act I, the play shifts to the "fairyland woods" and remains there through Acts II, III, and IV, returning to "Athens" in Act V for the concluding weddings and the performance of "Pyramus and Thisbe" by the uncouth, unskilled, but irrepressible company of Bottom and his fellow mechanicals.
Act I
Scene i: The play opens in the Athenian court of Theseus as he looks forward to wedding his bride, the former Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta, some four days hence at the summer Solstice. The "blocking" character of the play arrives in the form of the aged Egeus, the father of Hermia. He wants his daughter Hermia to ma...

Posted by: Quentina Green

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