Shakespeare Booklet

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Name:
Shakespeare’s Language Review
Match the original quotes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream to their modern-day translation.

For aught that I could ever read, This lantern represents the crescent
Could ever hear by tale or history, moon.
The course of true love never did run smooth.
Lysander, Act 1, Scene 1

Don’t bother wishing you could leave this

forest, because you’re going to stay here
How now, spirit? Whither wander you? whether you want to or not.
Puck, Act 2, Scene 1

If we actors have offended you, just think

I’ll follow thee and make a heaven of hell, of it this way and everything will be alright
To die upon the hand I love so well. - you were asleep when you saw these
Helena, Act 2, Scene 1 visions, and this silly and pathetic story
was no more real than a dream.

Shall we their fond pageant see?

Lord, what fools these mortals be! Should we watch this ridiculous scene?
Puck, Act 3, Scene 2 Lord, what fools these mortals are!

This lanthorn doth the horned moon present - I’ll follow you and turn this hell I’m in into
Starveling (Moonshine), Act 5, Scene 1 a kind of heaven. It would be heavenly to
be killed by someone I love so much.

If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended - Hello, spirit! Where are you going?
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
Puck, Act 5, Scene 1
Act one, scene 1
Questions

1. Theseus gives Hermia three choices. What are they?

a.

b.

c.

2. Compare Demetrius to Lysander. Make direct reference to lines in the play in your
comparison.

3. What impression do you have of Helena? Why?

4. How does Helena betray Hermia and why would she even though Helena loves
Demetrius and is Hermia’s best friend?

5. Lysander states “The course of true love never did run smooth;” (line 134). What barriers
do he and Hermia face?
Act one, scene 2
Questions

1. Why are the workers preparing a play?

2. Why does Nick Bottom want to play all the parts?

3. Describe how their names represent their trades.

4. Where are the actors to meet the following night? Who else is meeting in these same
woods at the same time?
5. Pick three adjectives you would use to describe Bottom, and provide quotes to support
your opinion.
a. Adjective: ______________________________

Quote:

b. Adjective: ______________________________

Quote:

c. Adjective: ______________________________

Quote:

Summarize the important events in point form.

Act one

●
Act two, Scene 1
Shakespeare gives the most lyrical and beautiful lines to the fairies. Titania’s long and poetic
speech from lines 81 to 117 is a perfect example.

Look for the literary devices in Titania’s speech listed below, and provide at least one example
of each. Write the line numbers for the example, the example itself, and then a briefly explain
what it means.

Imagery
Line number & Example

Explanation

Alliteration
Line number & Example

Explanation
Assonance
Line number & Example

Explanation

Personification
Line number & Example

Explanation

Couplet: Two lines of verse, usually in the same meter and joined by rhyme, that form a unit.

“I’ll follow thee, and make a heaven of hell,

To die upon the hand i love so well.” (243-4)

Helena’s final couplet sums up her feelings. Write a couplet for Demetrius to say to Helena just
before he leaves that sums up his feelings.
Act two, scene 2
Questions
1. How would you describe the character of Puck? What kind of mood does he create?

2. In the play thus far, what do you think is the central message about love that
Shakespeare is trying to get across? Support your answer with lines or scenes from the
play?

Summarize the important events in point form.

Act two

●
Character Twitter Profile
Choose one character that we’ve meet and create a twitter profile for them along with tweets that
that character might write. Fill in the rest of the template either in Shakespearean language or
modernized English.
Act three, Scene 1
Compile a list of all the suggestions that Bottom makes for the play. Alongside each, write if you
think each one is sensible.

Some critics see Bottoms as a fool. Others think he is wiser than he appears. What is your
opinion of Bottom?

Bottom says, “... reason and love keep little company together nowadays.” Illustrates how love
makes people act very irrationally. Make a list of the characters who are being reasonable, and
another list of those who are dominated by their emotions, particularly love.
Act three, Scene 2
At the hands of Puck and the love juice, the four young lovers are in a complete mess, with
Lysander and Demetrius professing love for Helena and hatred for Hermia. Oberon sees the
predicament the lovers are in and has a plan for fixing it; he also plans to resolve the situation
with Titania and her boy.

Paraphrase the steps of Oberon’s plan, using the following numbers and lines. Write you
answers below.

Step 1 (lines 360-363):

Step 2 (lines 363-365):

Step 3 (lines 366-371):

Step 4 (lines 372-377):

Step 5 (lines 378-379):

Step 6 (lines 380-384):

Summarize the important events in point form.

Act Three

●
Act four, Scene 1
Each character has woken up from what they believe is a dream. Each of the of their reactions
are different. Recall their reactions and include a quote that could back it up. Bottom’s account
of his time with Titania will be vastly different from hers; he, being a mere mortal, probably very
much enjoyed being waited on by fairies. Titania, on the other hand, is Queen of the Fairies,
and she is probably embarrassed that she loved this man who looked like a donkey.

Character Reaction
Include a quote.

Helena

Hermia

Lysander

Demetrius
 Titania

Bottom

Summarize the important events in point form.

Act four

●
Act four, Scene 2
Write a letter
When Bottom is reunited with his friends, they press him for details of what happened, but he is
unable to tell them much. Imagine that later Bottom calms down enough to relate his amazing
experiences. Write a letter from Bottom to his friends telling about his transformation into a
donkey, his meeting with the fairies, and his love affair with Titania. Try to write as Bottom would
(misusing long words, for example).
Act five, Scene 1
The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet
In lines 1-23 of Act five, scene 1, Theseus shows himself to be something of a realist - he does
not believe the lover’s stories of fairies and enchantment. This is in stark contrast to the rest of
the characters. Even his bride-to-be claims that the lovers’ accounts are too similar to be simply
imagined. Theseus speculates that the lover, madman, and poet have something in common.

After reviewing some of the skepticism Theseus shows, consider your own thoughts about the
supernatural. Write your answers to the following questions using complete sentences.

1. What is it that the lover, madman, and poet have in common (line 9)?

2. Theseus goes on to describe the common bond in more detail. Paraphrase what his
description of each is saying about that person in your own words.
a. The madman “sees more devils than vast hell can hold.”

b. The lover “sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt.”

 c. The poet “doth glance from heaven to earth… and as imagination bodies forth
the forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen turns them to shapes, and gives to
airy nothing a local habitation and a name.”

Summarize the important events in point form.

Act five