Hi there.

Welcome to today's lesson.

So great to see you.

My name is Mr. Barnsley and welcome to our lesson as we continue to dive into what is perhaps my favourite Shakespearean comedy, "A Midsummer Night's Dream." And today we are looking at the magical forest.

Sounds exciting, doesn't it? Let's get started.

Okay, so let's have a look at today's outcome, shall we? In today's lesson, or by the end of today's lesson, you will be able to explain why some of the "Midsummer Night's Dream" takes place in a magical forest.

Let's start by looking at our keywords.

These words are gonna be vital in helping us unpick today's lesson and make sure we can speak with confidence about why some of the play is set in this magical forest.

So these words are, hierarchy, status quo, disorder, to restore, that's a verb, and The Great Chain of Being.

Should we have a look at what these words mean then? So hierarchy is a system whereby people or things are ranked, with some things being higher than others.

The status quo is the accepted standards and rules by which a community lives.

Now disorder means confusion and chaos.

And I think from your understanding of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," you can see how we'll be able to use this word plenty of times during today's lesson.

To restore means to return something back to its original state.

So we'll be looking out for anything that gets restored in this play.

And finally, The Great Chain of Being is a term used by Elizabethans and are referred to a system of ranking, which they believe was created by God.

Now might be the best time to pause the video if you want to make a note of any of these keywords and what they mean.

Otherwise, we're going to get started with today's lesson.

Okay, so let's have a look at the lesson outline then.

In today's lesson, there are two learning cycles.

First, we're gonna be thinking about the significance of the magical forest.

And then in the second learning cycle we're gonna be thinking about this question, how far does the forest disrupt the status quo? Okay, before we can answer that question, we need to think about the significance of the magical forest, so let's get started.

Let's start with a discussion, shall we? If you're working with a partner, this will be a fantastic time to work with them.

But don't worry if you're working by yourself because you can always pause the video and think through these questions independently.

So what are we gonna be discussing? Well, I want us to think about this.

In Act 2, all of the characters below in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" are in the magical forest.

But I want you to see if you can remember why they are there.

So first we have the group of Athenians.

Hermia, Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius.

We also have Oberon, Titania and Puck.

And we have Bottom and all the other Athenian actors.

So you can see these have been grouped, but I want you to think about why are each of these three groups in the magical forest in Act 2.

So pause the video and discuss if you've got a partner or just think through this question independently if you're working by yourself.

And press play when you are ready to continue.

Some lovely discussions.

And it was really nice to see those of you who might have been struggling to remember to looking back, maybe you've got your copy of the play and you were looking through that.

That was great to see.

All right, let's have a look and shine a light on some of the things that were said then, shall we? So well done to everyone who remembered that these were the characters who have run away from Athens because they are pursuing their love affairs, which we know sit outside the sharp Athenian law.

And that's a quote from Act 1, Scene 1.

The characters of Oberon, Titania and Puck are there because this is where they live.

They live in and rule over the magical forest.

And finally, Bottom and the other Athenian actors, well they are there because they're rehearsing a play that they want to perform for Duke Theseus.

So we can see that each of these groups of characters all have a valid reason for being in the magical forest.

But now we want to think about why Shakespeare included a magical forest at all.

So there is another reason why these characters have found themselves in this magical forest, and that's because, or it's linked to one of the play's key themes, and that theme is order versus disorder versus chaos and destruction.

Now we know that the magical forest is where much of this disorder occurs.

So Aisha and Sofia are thinking about this and Sofia says, "Well, why couldn't Shakespeare have the disorder happen in Athens? Why set it in the magical forest?" And Aisha responds saying, "Well actually, for us to understand that we need to understand a little bit more about Elizabethan society.

That will help us answer your question, Sofia." So let's do that, shall we? We know that Elizabethans lived in a very ordered and hierarchical structure.

That meant there was levels of power with people sitting at the top and people at the bottom.

They believed that everyone had their place in the hierarchy and that place had been given to them by God.

This hierarchy was called The Great Chain of Being.

Remember that was one of our key phrases.

So, to question or to disrupt the hierarchy was seen as a threat to this ordered and hierarchical society.

However, the theatre was a place where we could explore those ideas of disorder and disruption without directly challenging the status quo, without directly challenging those in power.

Because the reality is what was happening on stage wasn't real life.

It was even safer then to explore this disorder in a setting that wasn't associated with law and order like Athens was.

So a setting like a magical forest would be a perfect place to explore these ideas of disorder, which we know would go against The Great Chain of Being.

This diagram that you can see on the screen now, this shows the hierarchy that was so important to Elizabethans, The Great Chain of Being.

You can see at the very top of the hierarchy was God, underneath God was the angels, and that was then led down to the monarch, kings and queens, the church, noble people, all the other people, and at the bottom of the hierarchy were the animals.

Let's have a think then, shall we? According to The Great Chain of Being, why would the relationship between Titania and Bottom challenge the status quo? Why don't you pause the video now and if you've got a partner you can discuss together.

And if you're working by yourself, you can just take a few moments to think through this question independently.

But when you're done, remember to press play and we'll continue with today's lesson.

Over to you.

Some fantastic discussions there.

And I really like those of you who were using some of our key words like hierarchy and The Great Chain of Being in those discussions.

Well done to those of you who said you thought Titania would be placed maybe somewhere around angels.

You know, we know she's a fairy queen, she's certainly somewhere between angels and monarchs.

So she's very high status and very important within The Great Chain of Being.

Whereas Bottom we know we can place really near the bottom.

He's a human, but he also at some point has the head of a donkey.

So he kind of straddles between the bottom two rungs of the hierarchy.

So to have someone so high up in the hierarchy falling in love with someone right at the bottom would really change the status quo.

It would certainly be a fantastic example of disorder that we know is a key theme of the play.

Well done if you said something similar in your discussions.

So we know "A Midsummer Night's Dream" includes lots of disorder, but at the end, Shakespeare carefully restores the status quo.

Everything goes back to how it was meant to be.

So let's discuss then, how does Shakespeare restore the status quo? Consider how the play ends.

What do you know about the ending of the plot that shows us the status quo has been resumed? And why do you think that Shakespeare restored the status quo? Consider the importance of The Great Chain of Being to Elizabethan society.

All right, two questions for you to think about.

You can discuss this in pairs or think through these independently, but it's over to you now.

Pause the video and press play when you are ready to continue.

Welcome back.

Some fantastic discussions there and I was really interested in what you were saying particularly to question two about Shakespeare's reasons for restoring the status quo.

I think it was really interesting that while Shakespeare is a very revolutionary writer and he's still viewed as one of the most revolutionary playwrights of our time, often a lot of his plays ended up with a status quo being restored because ultimately he was really respectful to hierarchy and those towards the top for something like The Great Chain of Being.

Well done if you said anything like that during your discussion.

All right, let's check how we're getting on, shall we? Why might Shakespeare have set parts of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in a magical forest? Let's have a look at the answers that you can select from.

Is it A, so he can restore the status quo outside the hierarchical world of Athens? Is it B, so he could explore disorder without directly challenging the hierarchy? Or is it C, so he could include The Great Chain of Being? Pause the video, have a think and press play when you're ready to continue.

Really well done if you said B.

It gave him almost a safe space where he could explore disorder without directly challenging the hierarchy that existed in both Athens but also in the wider Elizabethan world.

Well done if you picked B for that question.

Okay, now on to our first task.

What I'd like you to do is complete each sentence stem, and I've given you some prompts to guide you.

You will notice that each of those sentence stems on the left are virtually exactly the same thing.

However, they each have a slightly different conjunction, because, but and so.

And those conjunctions are really gonna change how you finish that sentence.

So it is really important that you read the prompts on the right to help you.

All right, time for you to pause the video now and give this a go.

I want three very different sentences from you.

Good luck, press play when you're ready to continue.

Hello, welcome back.

Really great to see some of you checking your work for spelling, punctuation, and grammar before you put your pens down.

That's a great habit to get into.

Well done if that was you.

Okay, before we move on, we're gonna do a little bit of self-reflection.

So I want you to self-assess what you have written using the prompts to guide you.

So for that first sentence, did you include the phrase, The Great Chain of Being in the second part of that sentence? For this sentence fragment, for the one using the conjunction, but have you considered the theatre or the magical forest as places where it was acceptable to present disorder? And finally that final sentence using that conjunction, so.

Have you explained how the end of the play restores order and why you think Shakespeare made that decision? All right, pause the video if you need to and if you want to make any improvements to your three sentences, now's the time to do it.

Remember to press play when you are ready to continue.

Welcome back.

Great.

Now we've thought about the significance of the magical forest, I think we can start to look towards answering this question of how far does the forest disrupt the status quo? So in many ways we know the magical forest is a place of disorder.

We know that Hermia and Lysander disobey the sharp Athenian law and they run away to get married.

We know this is where Titania refuses to give into Oberon's demands and what we might already know about patriarchal societies.

The queen should always obey the king.

Lysander and Demetrius fall in and out of love with the wrong women.

We know that Bottom becomes partly an animal.

We know that Queen Titania falls in love with a low status character, Bottom.

We also know that forest is full of mischievous fairies, especially Puck, who is a very important character in this play.

However, saying all of that, in many ways the magical forest also becomes a place of order.

We know there is a hierarchy even within the forest.

We have a king and queen and they rule over their kingdom.

We see that Puck is an incredibly obedient servant to his master King Oberon.

And we know that actually Oberon and Puck don't deliberately try and confuse Lysander and Demetrius.

It's a mistake.

And ultimately it is Oberon and Puck who are the ones who restore the status quo at the end of the play.

They remove the love potion from Lysander and Titania and they make sure the Athenians return to Athens.

So let's think for a moment, true or false? Oberon is only interested in disorder.

Is that true or is that false? Pause the video, have a think and press play when you're ready to continue.

Yes, well done if you said false.

Now let's justify that.

Is it because it is Puck, not Oberon who wants to create disorder? This is why he puts the love potion on Lysander rather than Demetrius.

Or is it B, Oberon creates disorder through his plot with Titania, but he is also interested in restoring order at the end of the play.

Pause the video, have a think and press play when you're ready to continue.

Well done if you said B.

Yes, we know that Oberon creates disorder, particularly through that plot involving Titania, but ultimately he really does want to restore order and we see that by the end of the play.

Well done if you selected B.

Okay, onto our second task in today's lesson.

Firstly, I'm gonna ask you to reread Act 2, Scene 1 from lines 247 to the end of the scene.

If you have your own copy of the play, brilliant.

But I've also provided this scene in the additional materials, so you might want to make sure you've got those in front of you so you can do this activity.

In the extract, Oberon plans to use the magical potion on Demetrius as well as Titania.

Once you've done that, I want you to complete the table below.

There are two columns, one where we're gonna argue that the forest is a place of disorder, and the other a column where we're gonna argue the forest is a place of order.

In each of those columns, I want you to justify those arguments and support your ideas with evidence from the play.

Things to consider when you are gonna try and argue the forest is a place of disorder.

I want you to think about what Oberon plots for Titania and how this is expressed.

I want you to think about what happens in the plot after he puts the magical potion on her.

And I want you to think about how an Elizabethan audience might react to these events.

And on the other side, when you start to argue the forest is a place of order, I want you to consider the following.

The relationship between Oberon and Puck and how it is expressed.

And Oberon's original intentions for the Athenian nobles.

Okay, plenty for you to do here, so give yourselves enough time to do this.

You want to reread this scene and then you want to complete the table.

Over to you.

Good luck.

Press play when you're ready to continue.

Welcome back.

Really great to see you looking so carefully at the scene to find appropriate evidence to support your ideas.

Shall we have a look at how Aisha answered one of these? So Aisha looked at the side, the forest is a place of disorder.

Let's have a look at what she wrote.

"Oberon says he will put the potion onto Titania and make her full of hateful fantasies." That's line 258.

"The word fantasies often has positive connotations of happy imagination, but Oberon says that they will be hateful, which shows the fantasy will be out of control.

Titania falling in love with Bottom is also a sign of disorder because Titania is a queen, and so according to an Elizabethan audience should not be in love with a low status character." Let's have a look at what Aisha did so well.

Well, she had really close reference to the text, including quotations, and she considered the impact on an Elizabethan audience.

What I'd like you to do now is use the checklist you can see on screen and check if both of your responses do do these two things.

Have you got really close reference to the text and have you considered how an Elizabethan audience would respond? Pause the video and reflect on your own work now.

Okay, that's it.

We've reached the end of today's lesson.

I really enjoyed exploring the magical forest with you today and its relevance to "A Midsummer Night's Dream." On the screen, you can see a summary of all the key learning we've covered.

Shall we just look through that together? Firstly, we explored the idea that Elizabethans believed that everyone had their place in society and that was a hierarchy that they called The Great Chain of Being.

We also learned that to question or disrupt this hierarchy was a threat to society.

We learned that the theatre was a place you could explore disorder because what was on stage wasn't real life.

And we also learned it was even safer to explore disorder in a setting that wasn't associated with law and order.

So a setting like a forest would be great to explore disorder.

We also know that whilst much disorder takes place in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," ultimately order is restored by the end of the play.

If there's anything on that screen that you're like, I'm not too sure about that, I'm not sure I feel really confident with that, then please do take the time to go back and watch sections of this video again so you can feel super confident before you move on to the next lesson.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

It's been a pleasure learning alongside you.

I really hope you've enjoyed this lesson and I hope you've got a lovely rest of the day planned, whatever you are choosing to do.

Hopefully I will see you in one of our lessons again soon.

Thank you very much.

Goodbye.