nd, if a natural woman, is not a pleasing
representative of her sex." She "will provoke her Benedicke to give
her much and just conjugal castigation," says Campbell. Is he right,
and will Benedicke feel so?--or is Swinburne right, who says she is "a
decidedly more perfect woman than could properly or permissibly have
trod the stage of Congreve or Moliere" and who speaks of her "light
true heart"?

Is the superficial Claudio worthy of Hero?

Are the faults in the plot of the Play, such as are necessitated by
the design of using the characters themselves and their "noting" of
one another as the source of events, and, therefore, in the last
analysis not faults, a study of their relation to the design leading
us, as Hartley Coleridge puts it, never to censure Shakespeare without
finding reason to eat our words?

A MIDSOMMER NIGHTS DREAME

Having read "A Midsommer Nights Dreame" as a whole, if it be not
already fresh in the mind, or, if possible, having seen it acted, then
consider more carefully the characteristics of its dramatic structure,
studying the plot and progress of the story as it is unfolded act by
act, also the sources, the characters, and so forth, as suggested in
the following study.

ACT I

THE CROSSED LOVERS

Sum up the incidents and characters introduced in the first Act and
ascertain which are most important in influencing the rest of the
story.

It may be noticed that Theseus and Hippolyta and their marriage
festivities are personages and events which make up a decorative
external sort of frame for the whole play, but that the centre of the
action takes its start, primarily, from the conflict of Hermia's love
for Lysander with her father's choice of Demetrius, and, secondarily,
from the clash of Helena's love for Demetrius with his suit for
Hermia. Show how the brisk bit of dialogue between Hermia and Lysander
(I. i. 141-166) implies the forthcoming plot. For example, it may be
shown that 'to be enthrall'd to love' (the first folio reading is
_love_ instead of _low_, which was an emendation of Theobald's,)
[Footnote: See foot note in First Folio edition.] and to have
'sympathy in choice' made as 'momentary as a sound, swift as a shadow,
short as any dream,' is to be the fate of all the lovers in the play,
except Theseus and Hippolyta, and to constitute the substance of the
action.

Consider what relation the second scene has to the story. Is it more
extraneous to the movement than