A Midsummer Night's Dream By Charles Lamb Summery

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

By Charles Lamb

About The Poet

 Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb about the Authors Charles Lamb were born on 10 February, 1775 and Mary Lamb was born on 3 December, 1764. Both the siblings have been famous for writing children's book Tales from Shakespeare in 1807. Both Charles and his sister Mary suffered a period of mental illness. But Mary's illness was strongest as it led her to become violent and in such a fit, she killed her mother. Later on, she came back from asylum and both enjoyed the active and rich social life.

 Charles Lamb began his career with the inclusion of four sonnets in Coleridge's Poems on Various Subjects in 1796. In the final year of the 18th century, he began to work as a prose writer. At first, he wrote a novella Rosamund Gray. His career became fruitful in collaboration with his sister Mary. Together, they wrote three books for William Godwin's Juvenile Library.

Besides contributing to Shakespeare's reception with his book Tales from Shakespeare, Lamb also contributed to the recovery of his contemporaries with his book Specimens of the English Dramatic Poets who lived about the time of Shakespeare. William Wordsworth wrote an epitaph - poem “Written after the Death of Charles Lamb “in which he exalts the moral character of his friend.

 

ABOUT THE ESSAY

 This essay is an adaptation of William Shakespeare's comic play A Midsummer Night's Dream. Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb wrote a book on Shakespeare's stories or plays as essays for children. The book is Tales from Shakespeare. This essay is a part taken from this book. No doubt, they have adapted his plays, but the plot has not been altered, like the drama, this essay contains three interconnected plots. The play, itself, is comic and so, is the essay. Lamb brother and sister have made changes in the language as archaic words (old - fashioned) have been avoided by them.

The essay follows the same sequence of the original play. It uncovers the story of Hermia's refusal to her father's choice Demetrius as her husband. So, the father requests the Prince to enforce the law on her in which such disobedient girls are to be killed. The kind hearted prince provides four days to Hermia to change her decision. Instead of changing her decision , she decide to slope with her love Lysander to his aunt's place where no such law is applicable , Hermia , as a good friend , tells this plan to Helena but unfortunately , she , to gain the love of Demetrius , reveals everything to him . All the four march forward to the forest where the king and queen of fairies live. King is at quarrel with the queen because she is not giving him the boy. He wants to make him a page. How the three couples face confusions because of magical love potion and then how everything resolves the matter and then how they get happy ending is the main subject - matter of the play as well as of the essay.

 

SUMMARY

The essay unfolded the story of three couples in Athenian land. The city of Athens had a strange law which stated that a girl should marry a man of her father's choice. If she failed to do so, then she would be put to death this law was not used by parents because no father would have wanted to see his daughter die. So, this law was not enforced but ladies knew about it as the parents made them to learn it, from time to time. This law always kept young ladies under terror.

But one father took shelter of this law. He was Egeus. He went to Theseus with a request for the trial of his daughter Hermia. As she disobeyed her father's wish by refusing to Marry Demetrius, so he went to the court for utilizing the law for making his choice his daughter's choice as well.

Hermia honestly confessed her love for Lysander and also told the reason of her refusal. She told that Demetrius was in love with her best friend Helena. No doubt, this was a genuine excuse but the prince could not change the law. The merciful prince gave Hermia four days to reconsider her decision or else she would be put to death.

Hermia, straight forwardly, went to her lover Lysander. She told her about everything and also about the choice she was left with Lysander gave her the idea of running away from Athens to his Aunt's place where that law was not in execution. There, they would marry and live a good life. He asked her to meet him in the woods. This was the forest where Hermia and Helena used to go for walks.

 Hermia was happy and she shared her joy with Helena, the best friend in her life. But unfortunately, Helena transferred the secret to Demetrius. She did all that, not to cause any harm to Hermia but to achieve some favours from her former lover. She also thought that it would be great to follow her love in the forest.

That forest was the favourite place of fairies and their king Oberon and Queen Titania . Both loved each other but at that hour of the day, they were quarrelling with each other. So, both were in very bad mood and all the fairies were so threatened that they hid themselves to escape the anger of both. Both were fighting for a boy whom Oberon wanted as his page or servant while Titania refused because the boy was her friend's son. When she returned to the fairy world, Oberon met her on her way, he again asked for the boy. This made queen angry and she told him that he would not be able to do so. King assured that this refusal would cause her to pay back before morning.

The Oberon asked Puck, his chief counselor to go and fetch the special flower of love. Puck was famous for his practical jokes which he applied on the people of neighboring villages. Sometimes, he became milk in the butter - churn, the dairy - maid would labor to change into batter. Similarly, when some people sat together to enjoy ale, he would mix his form into it and then bob out spilling the ale over her chin. Or sometimes would slip the three - legged stool, resulting the old woman to fall down. Such incidents gave chance to all to stop gossiping and laugh at victims of Puck,

Oberon ordered him to pluck the “Lore of Idleness so that he would drop some juice of that purple flower. The juice would make the queen to fall in love with the very first person she would see after walking up. He would take the boy from her in this trick and then he would reverse the spell by using another flower.

When Puck left, Oberon found Demetrius followed by Helena. He felt very bad on finding out how badly that man was behaving with the lady. Oberon was always a friend of lovers. Such a neglect of real love at the hands of that Athenian man made him disturbed. When Helena was enjoying Demetrius ' love, Oberon witnessed that time too and that's why, he was feeling so bad. He ordered Puck to use some love potion on a young man dressed in Athenian style. He further instructed him to take care that he would drop the juice only then when he was asleep and only the lady was around him.

Oberon left for his queen. When he reached there she was preparing to sleep as she was covering himself in snake skin and was ordering her elves to sing her a lullaby. They sang for her and she was fastened asleep so Oberon dropped some juice on her eyelids.

On the other side, Hermia entered the forest and found Lysander waiting for her. Both started to move for the destination, happy in each other's company. But very soon both felt tired and fell asleep. Puck found them and mistook Lysander for Demetrius and slipped potion onto his eyes as per Oberon's directions. Unfortunately, Helena came there as she lost the track of Demetrius. She found Lysander there and tried to wake him up. As a result, he fell in love with her. He started adoring her. This made Helena angry because she thought Lysander was making fun of her sad situation.

Meanwhile, Demetrius fell asleep when he did not find Hermia or Lysander. Oberon learnt about Puck's mistake. So, on encountering with Demetrius, he poured some love potion on him. When he woke up, he found Helena in front of him and immediately fell in love with her. Both the Youngman were now showcasing their love for Helena. All this made her really angry. She thought that all the three were making fun of her. They were enjoying her troubled condition.

She started quarrelling with Hermia how she could do that to her best friend. She made her recall how they shared everything in their childhood. Hermia became angry as she saw Lysander making love to Helena. Both the ladies kept quarrelling while Demetrius and Lysander challenged each other for Helena's love. Oberon and Puck, on hearing all this became alarmed. He ordered Puck to keep them apart by fogging the whole place. He also told him to make them move in different directions by imitating the voices. Then to bring them to one place when they were totally tired and had no power to fight

 Meanwhile, he went to Titania. There, he found a clown nearby her. At first, he tried to shoe him away but then he had an idea to embarrass the queen. So, he went to that joker and gave him a donkey head. As Titania opened her eyes and found that asshead clown, she fell in deep love with him. She started doing and ordering things for him. She even offered her lap to caress him. At this moment, Oberon entered the scene and slashed her for such immortality. He took off the spell. She was totally devastated at her such shameful act. She could not believe it. So. When Oberon asked for the boy, she could not do anything but to give the boy. She did not know how she ordered Pease - blossom, cobweb and mustard - seed to work for that monster. After all this, both reunited. He told her about the lovers and she agreed to go and see the end of everything.

Puck did as he was told. When they all fell asleep, king poured another juice on Lysander's eyes to make him out of first spell. As all woke up, everything was normal. Demetrius was in love with Helena, Lysander with Hermia. Lysander and Hermia thought that they had some dream. Both the girls became friends again. Meanwhile, Hermia's father came there in search of his eloped daughter. When he saw that Demetrius was not interested in her, any longer, so he agreed for Hermia and Lysander's marriage. Invisible king and queen and fairies enjoyed this union.

 Authors, in the last paragraph, advise the readers. If they cannot digest this story then they must take all this as a sweet and harmless Midsummer Night's Dream.