| lamb | young sheep |
| pentameter | a verse line having five metrical feet |
| iambic pentameter | a common meter in poetry consisting of an unrhymed line with five feet or accents, each foot containing an unaccented syllable and an accented syllable |
| oxymoron | conjoining contradictory terms (as in ‘deafening silence’). EXAMPLE: One of Helena’s oxymorons is in Act 3, scene 2,line 129: “oh devilish- holy fray! |
| soliloquy | a (usually long) dramatic speech intended to give the illusion of unspoken reflections. EXAMPLE: The play ends with fairies casting blessings and Puck delivering a soliloquy. |
| aside | a message that departs from the main subject |
| malapropism | the unintentional misuse of a word by confusion with one that sounds similar. EXAMPLE: When Titania offers Bottom the soothing music provided by her fairies, he prefers the more rustic entertainment of the “tongs and the bones.” When she offers him whatever food he desires, he chooses the simple fare of oats and hay. When he prosaically feels an “exposition” of sleep coming on, a malapropism for “disposition, |
| blank verse | unrhymed verse (usually in iambic pentameter).EXAMPLE: Theseus’s speech to Hippolyta (MND I.i.15-19)Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword, And won thy love, doing thee injuries. But I will wed thee in another key, With pomp, with triumph, and with reveling. |
| pun | a humorous play on words. EXAMPLE: Act 3, Scene 1 after Puck has changed Bottom’s head into the head of a donkey. Bottom speaks one pun in the phrase “you see an ass-head” (III.i.109). This phrase has a double meaning. Figuratively, seeing an “ass-head” means seeing a “figment of your own imagination.” However, it refers to a double meaning in that Snout is indeed looking at Bottom and indeed seeing an ass’s head instead of Bottom’s own head. |
| allusion | passing reference or indirect mention.EXAMPLE: Titania uses two mythological allusions in her conversation with Oberon in Act 2, Scene 1. She makes mythical allusions to Phillida and Neptune. She uses these allusions as evidence to back up the points she is trying to get across to Oberon. The first example of an allusion that Titania uses is that of Phillida. Tatania quotes, “to amorous Phillida” (Shakespeare 39). Phillida is a reference to the traditional |
| comedy | Dramatic form that pits two societies against each other in an amusing conflict. The central character has a rise in fortune |
| Green Comedy | “the action of the [Green World] comedy begins in a world represented as a normal world, moves into the Green World, goes into a metamorphosis there. . . and returns to the normal world” (85). The principal characters converge in this Green World, typically a forest, and all of their conflicts are worked through and resolved. This convergence in a forest is what we have observed in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.This Green World is also maternal; that is, there is something about this world that engenders new life, and often there is a character, usually female, who dies and is revived, either physically or spiritually. Thus death is a part of comedy because comedy embraces all of life’s experiences, but death in comedy is not tragic because even if the dead character is not revived, the character’s spirit lives on in one or more of the other characters. Therefore, death allows the other characters to re-assess their lives and live them more fully.The Green World is a place of magic, transformation, and discovery. It is also a place of incongruities, where things and people seem to be out of their element. |
| Examples of Green World | Obviously, the Green World in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the “greenest” of all of Shakespeare’s Green Worlds, for it is indeed the forest of fairy magic, and this fairy magic is directly related to the phenomena of love. Love, Shakespeare seems to be saying, is a magical transformation that can be explained only by the saying that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” All of the falling in and out of love that takes place in the Green World is facilitated by Oberon’s love potion that blinds the characters to the outward appearances of their beloveds. How else could one explain the incongruity of the beautiful fairy queen’s infatuation with Bottom who, of course, has been transformed into an ass? Or Lysander’s sudden love for Helena?Titania represents the maternal aspect of the Green World; she is the quintessential “earth mother” who nurtures all living things–including mortals. Her association with the harmony of the natural world is best evidenced in Act 2, Scene 1:81-117. Her feud with Oberon, the dissonance that they have created, is manifested in the form of fogs, floods, and failed crops –all of which threaten the well being of the mortals. Thus the earth is withering, rotting, and stagnating, and unless it is revived, its inhabitants will suffer as well. The prospect of death and destruction once more rears its ugly head. |
| Freytag’s Pyramid | 1.The Exposition:The writer introduces the characters and setting, providing description and background.2. The Rising Action: The dramatist or the novelist introduces complications in his plot.3. The Crisis: The moment of greatest tension in a story. This is often the most exciting event. It is the event that the rising action builds up to and that the falling action follows.4. The Falling Action: The events which happen as a result of the climax.5. The Ending: The character solves the main problem/conflict or someone solves it for him or her. At this point, any remaining secrets, questions or mysteries which remain after the resolution are solved by the characters or explained by the author. |
Midsummer Nights Dream Words
July 12, 2019