"The Worlds Behind the Worlds" documents the process of directing "A Midsummer Night's Dream," presented October 2008 in the McLeod Theater at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Specifically, this document details the development of the director's vision for the play from initial readings through post-production evaluations. The work is structured chronologically, beginning in Chapter One with a discourse on the director's initial response to the play followed by a preliminary statement of vision. The second chapter analyzes key research through which the preliminary statement of vision was filtered and discusses the director's conclusions. A revised statement of vision and concept is presented, followed by a proposed production process and projected results. Chapter Three explains the execution of this production process, and the final chapter consists of the director's evaluation of the production. Appendices follow including visual research, production documents, the director's approach to heightened language, a rehearsal journal, an external evaluation, and production photos.

The study of the social dimensions of Shakespeare's art is represented by the work of Mikhail Bakhtin, C.L. Barber, Robert Weimann, Edward Berry, and Michael Bristol. Their work analyzes the background in Elizabethan social practices and popular dramatic traditions that contribute to the form, structure, and meaning of Shakespeare's comedies. The purpose of this study is to review the work of these authors, apply their insights into three productions of A Midsummer Niqht's Dream, and suggest further implications of their work. A review of these authors' major premises provides the context for analysis of three productions of A Midsummer Niqht's Dream: those of Max Reinhardt, Peter Hall, and, Joseph Papp. This study suggests that the popular festive tradition created a dialogic mode in Shakespeare's art and accounts for important features of our aesthetic experience of the plays. / Graduation date: 1994

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The editor's Thesis--Göttingen. / Schlegel's translation of A midsummer night's dream.

The editor's Thesis--Göttingen. / Schlegel's translation of A midsummer night's dream.

Although Shakespeare deliberately downplays characterization in his moonlit dream fantasy, both Britten and Siegmeister exploit this dramatic element as the basis of their opera settings of the play. Through the operas, the shallow characters take on new dimensions, creating musical experiences existing quite independently of Shakespeare, while at the same time retaining the atmosphere of a dream-fantasy. Placing emphases upon varying aspects of the play, the two composers create entirely different revelations from the Bard's dream. This paper presents a study of the way in which drama and characterization are treated in the operas, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Night of the Moonspell.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Theatre, 2009. / Title from first page of PDF document. Text in English and Korean. Includes bibliographical references.

Many scholars who study Plato and Shakespeare together focus only on erotic love between lovers or nonsexual love between others. A closer study of A Midsummer Night’s Dream shows that Shakespeare uses Plato’s concepts of the soul in addition to the Forms, the guide, as well as staging the varieties of love that can exist between two individuals and the dangers of loving the physical more than the mind. Shakespeare takes these ideas embedded in Symposium and Phaedrus and not only crafts his play accordingly, but also creates his own versions through his unique interpretations. These alterations appear reflected in the play’s sequence of events, the characters’ actions, and the merging of the faerie and human realms. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

From July 1, 1934, to November 1, 1968, the Production Code Administration (PCA) oversaw the creation of American motion pictures, in order to improve Hollywood’s moral standing. To assist in this endeavor, the studios produced film adaptations of classic literature, such as the plays of William Shakespeare. In the first two years of the Code’s inception, two Shakespearean films were produced by major studios: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935) and Romeo and Juliet (1936). But were these classic adaptations able to avoid the censorship that other films endured? With the use of archived collections, film viewings, and an in-depth analysis of the plays, multiple versions of the scripts, and other available surviving documents, I was able to see how these productions were affected by the enforcement of film censorship and what it said about the position of Shakespeare’s work in society. A Midsummer Night’s Dream tended to use self-regulation, so as to avoid the censorship of the PCA. However, the film did not escape without some required changes. In spite of the filmmakers’ efforts, there were a few textual changes and the fairy costumes required revisions to meet the PCA’s standards. In the case of Romeo and Juliet, the PCA was far more involved in all stages of the film’s production. There were many documented text changes and even a case in which the censors objected to how the actors and director executed a scene on film. The motion picture was created as if it were of the greatest importance by all involved. And, as it were, the existing archives paint a picture of a production that was a sort of battleground in a sociopolitical war between the censors and the filmmakers. As both films arrived on the international stage, this sociopolitical campaigning did not end. During international distribution, the films were each accepted, rejected, and forced to endure further censorship, in order to become acceptable for public screening. This censorship often relayed a message about the location’s societal views and its contrast to American society.

In this study of A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, and Measure for Measure I argue that the surface plots of these comedies point us to a philosophic understanding seldom discussed in either contemporary public discourse or in Shakespearean scholarship. The comedies usually involve questions arising from the conflict between the enforcement of law (whether just or not) and the private longings (whether noble or base) of citizens whose yearnings for happiness tend to be sub- or even supra-political. No regime, it appears, is able to respond to the whole variety of circumstances that it may be called upon to judge. Even the best written laws meet with occasional exceptions and these ulterior instances must be judged by something other than a legal code. When these extra-legal instances do arise, political communities become aware of their reliance on a kind of political judgment that is usually unnoticed in the day-to-day affairs of public life. Further, it is evident that the characters who are able to exercise this political judgment, are the very characters whose presence averts a potentially tragic situation and makes a comedy possible. By presenting examples of how moral and political problems are dealt with by the prudent use of wisdom, Shakespeare is pointing the reader to a standard of judgment that transcends any particular (or actual) political arrangement. Once we see the importance of the prudent use of such a standard, we are in a position to judge what this philosophic wisdom consists of and where it is to be acquired. It is just such an education with which Shakespeare intends to aid his readers.