A Newberry Library adult education class. Summer 2026. Tuesdays 2:00-4:00pm (CT), by Zoom, July 21 through August 11. Registration information here.
Shall we their fond pageant see?
Lord, what fools these mortals be!
– Act 3, scene 2
Learn about Shakespeare’s most magical comedy through lively discussion of film versions and an in-depth, weekly exploration of the play’s text. This class offers an engaging introduction to Shakespeare’s sublime command of poetic styles and the extraordinary legacy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in art, music, global culture, and performance—particularly the magical performance of reading. Four sessions.
“Shakespeare has found (with A Midsummer Night’s Dream) the key to a dramatic mode that works equally on the page and the stage: action whose direct theatrical appeal is mediated through a web of words that only yields its secrets on repeated visits. He has created the conditions for being at once a theatrical and a literary dramatist.” – Sukanta Chaudhuri
Materials List
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, by William Shakespeare. The Pelican Shakespeare edition. Penguin 2016. ISBN 978-0143128588.
For the first session, watch either of the following two films, streaming online as indicated, or available on dvd (purchase on your own or check out through a local library):
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935), directed by Max Reinhardt and starring Olivia de Havilland, Dick Powell, Mickey Rooney, and James Cagney. Streaming on Prime, Apple TV, and Fandango at home. DVD available to borrow from Chicago Public Library.
or
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1999), directed by Michael Hoffman and starring Kevin Kline, Calista Flockhart, Stanley Tucci, and Michelle Pfeiffer. Streaming on Prime, Apple TV (for purchase only), and Fandango at home. DVD available to borrow from Chicago Public Library.
Class Description
This class is structured around a film and a text. By seeing either recommended version of the film first, students should arrive at the first session with 1) the overall story of the play in mind, 2) reactions to the play’s characters and themes, 3) questions about plot, and 4) questions about Shakespeare’s life and times.
At the first session, we’ll share our reactions to the two film versions and view specific scenes from each film in order to get a sense of how A Midsummer Night’s Dream “works.” I’ll introduce fundamental matters of Shakespeare’s theatrical world and establish some of the biographical and social context for this play. I’ll then introduce basic approaches to reading a Shakespeare text, in preparation for the next session.
The second session will focus on reading and interpreting Act One of the text of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, introducing the class’s emphasis on a reader’s engagement with the play’s poetic techniques. Throughout our exploration of the play (for all subsequent sessions), we’ll focus on our own readings of key scenes and see how some of those scenes are presented in a variety of film versions. The third session will cover Acts Two and Three. With the general sense of the play well in hand and with questions arising from the previous sessions, we’ll weave into our close readings an investigation of the performance history A Midsummer Night’s Dream, from the Elizabethan and Victorian eras to the twenty-first–century stage. The final session, moving through the text of Acts Four and Five, will extend our discussion of issues that emerged in our earlier discussions, and we’ll be able to give our full attention to the play-within-the play, “Pyramus and Thisby” in Act Five.
Each of the four sessions will include a handout with suggestions for what to focus on in the upcoming reading, as well as insights from specific, relevant examples of Shakespeare criticism through the years. Since the play’s first performances, A Midsummer Night’s Dream has stimulated critical discussions of fairy tales, theatricality, romance, and love, and it has also contributed significantly to debates on class, gender, and diverse forms of colonialism. Slides in class will highlight several relevant works held by the Newberry Library Special Collections, including the fantastic First Folio of Shakespeare’s work.
No AI technology will be used in the development or presentation of lectures and class materials.
Schedule
Session One: Film discussion.
Session Two: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (text), Act I
Session Three: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (text), Acts II and III
Session Four: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (text), Acts IV and V
Image: Oberon, Titania, and Puck with Fairies Dancing, by William Blake (c. 1786). Tate Gallery.
