A Midsummer Night’s Dream



A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Reading Journal

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Name: __________________________________

Act 1 – Write down five details that strike you and tell why each is significant, what purpose it serves, what it evokes. Be as specific as possible.

|Details |Significance, Purpose, Evocation |

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Act 2 – The fairies are delightfully complex characters. Small in stature, some of them possess larger-than-life personalities. In the space below, draw caricatures of the fairies, making sure to include Oberon, Titania, and Puck because they are the most individualized. Remember that a caricature exaggerates the most notable physical characteristics and personality traits of the subject.

Act 3 - Complete a character wheel for one the characters from the novel. You may NOT choose any of the fairies. “Quotations” doesn’t mean direct statements from that character; instead, it means quotations from the text itself.

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Act 4 –

Discuss the significance of the title of the play in relation to the play itself.

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Discuss and explain the significance of the setting to the play.

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Act 5 – Read the passage once BEFORE you do anything else.

Color-mark the passage. Use a different color each for examples of terms such as: diction (denotation and connotation), syntax, image, allusion, repetition, figurative language, theme development, etc. AFTER color-marking, develop an analysis based on your discoveries. Your analysis can be in note-form, but you need to have an understanding of the literary devices used and the effect with which they are used. WHY is this passage important? Consider tone and style as well. Be prepared to discuss.

| |Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, |

|5 |Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend |

| |More than cool reason ever comprehends. |

| |The lunatic, the lover and the poet |

| |Are of imagination all compact: |

| |One sees more devils than vast hell can hold, |

|10 |That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic, |

| |Sees Helen's beauty[1] in a brow of Egypt[2]: |

| |The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling, |

| |Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven; |

| |And as imagination bodies forth |

|15 |The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen |

| |Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing |

| |A local habitation and a name. |

| |Such tricks hath strong imagination, |

| |That if it would but apprehend some joy, |

|20 |It comprehends some bringer of that joy; |

| |Or in the night, imagining some fear, |

| |How easy is a bush supposed a bear! |

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| |Theseus, V.i.4-22 |

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[1] The beauty of Helen of Troy

[2] A Gypsy-like face (supposedly unattractiveness of women of darker coloring)

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