A Midsummer Night's Dream Summary and Analysis of Act 2 The puck enters, having vainly searched the woods
g vainly searched the woods for an Athenian. He spies
Act Two, Scene One
Robin Goodfellow, also called Puck, meets with a fairy who serves
Queen Titania. She tells him that Titania is coming to the woods outside of
Athens that night. Puck informs the fairy that it would be better if Titania and
his master, Oberon, did not meet since they only quarrel when they do so.
Seconds later both Oberon and Titania arrive onstage, both accompanied by
their respective fairy followers. Immediately they begin an argument, with
both of them accusing each other of infidelity and jealousy. Titania has stolen
a young boy whom she keeps with her and spends her time caring for.
Oberon, jealous of the attention the boy is receiving, demands that Titania
give the boy to him, a request she refuses.
After Titania departs, Oberon vows to get revenge on her for causing him
embarrassment. He sends his puck to fetch some pansies, the juice of which
is supposed to make a person love the first thing he or she sees upon waking
up. Oberon's plan is to put the juice onto Titania's eyes while she sleeps, so
that she will fall in love with the first animal she sees after waking up. Puck
leaves him and Oberon hides himself.
Demetrius and Helena arrive in the woods right next to where Oberon is
hidden. Demetrius tells Helena to go away, and that he does not love her
even though she has told him about Hermia and Lysander trying to run away.
She threatens to chase him down if he should try to leave her in the woods.
Oberon, having overheard the entire conversation, decides to make
Demetrius fall in love with Helena. He tells Robin Goodfellow to take some
of the juice and go anoint the eyes of the Athenian man in the woods, but
doing so only when it is certain that the woman by his side will be the first
person he sees. The puck agrees, and goes off to carry out his errand.
Act Two, Scene Two
Titania calls for a quick dance in the woods with her fairies, after which they
sing her to sleep. Oberon takes the opportunity to sneak up and drop the
pansy juice onto her closed eyelids. Soon thereafter Lysander and Hermia,
tired of walking and having lost their way, decide to go to sleep as well. They
lie down, but Hermia demands that Lysander sleep a short distance away in
order to keep up her sense of modesty since she is not married to him yet.
Lysander lying apart from Hermia and deduces that this must be the hard-
hearted Athenian which Oberon spoke about. Robin Goodfellow quickly
drops some of the juice onto Lysander's eyes.
Demetrius, followed closely by Helena, runs into the clearing where
Lysander is lying asleep. She begs him to stop running away from her, but he
refuses and leaves her there alone. Helena finally sees Lysander on the
ground and shakes him awake, unwittingly becoming the first woman he sees
when he opens his eyes. Lysander immediately falls in love with Helena, and
tells her that he deeply loves her. She thinks it is a cruel joke and tells him to
stop abusing her.
Helena leaver, and Lysander decides to forget about Hermia and follow
Helena instead. Hermia wakes up because she is scared about a dream she
has had in which a serpent eats her heart. She calls for Lysander, but he is no
longer near her. She then leaves her bed to go search for him.
Analysis
The aspect of the woods as a place for the characters to reach adulthood is
made even more explicit in this scene. In the dialogue between Helena and
Demetrius, the woods are a place to be feared, and also are a place to lose
virginity. As Demetrius warns, "You do impeach your modesty too much, /
To leave the city and commit yourself / Into the hands of one that loves you
not; / To trust the opportunity of night / And the ill counsel of a desert
place, / With the rich worth of your virginity" (2.1.214-219). Thus the forest
can be allegorically read as a sort of trial for the characters, a phase they must
pass through in order to reach maturity.
Hermia's serpent serves as a sign of the monsters which are in the woods.
This plays into the fact that the woods are not only a place which the
characters must escape from, but are also a place of imagination. Hermia's
fear of her dream, in which the monster and the danger are only imagined, is
meant to show the audience that the danger in a play is only imagined by the
audience; neither the play nor Hermia's dream are real.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning: Sonnet 43
Context
Elizabeth Barret Browning was a prominent Victorian poet. She suffered
from lifelong illness, despite which she married the poet and playwright
Robert Browning, who was a major influence on her work, and to
whom Sonnet 43 is addressed. Sonnet 43 is part of a longer sonnet [sonnet: A
14-line poem, usually written in iambic pentameter. Most sonnets conform to
one of the following rhyme schemes: A-B-A-B C-D-C-D E-F-E-F G-G
(English sonnet); or A-B-B-A A-B-B-A C-D-E C-D-E (Italian
sonnet). ] sequence of 44 sonnets called Sonnets from the Portuguese. Other
famous examples of the sonnet sequence include Sir Philip
Sydney's Astrophil and Stella and Shakespeare's sonnets.
Subject matter
Sonnet 43
Elizabeth Barrett Browning's sonnet sequence was written before she married
Robert Browning to express her intense love for him. Sonnet 43 is the most
famous of the 44 sonnets. In it, Browning attempts to define her love. The
opening of the poem suggests it arises from a question: "How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways!".
Structure and language
Structure
Sonnet 43 is the length of a traditional sonnet (14 lines) but otherwise does
not follow the rules. There is a fairly regular rhyme scheme, but this is
flexible, and Browning often makes use of assonance [assonance: Words
that sound the same through the use of similar vowels or consonants, eg 'hot'
and 'slop' or 'fold' and 'filled'. ] (for example "Praise" and "Faith"), which is
striking because the poem is about defining the perfect love, and yet the
poem avoids perfection. Perhaps this is deliberate.
Language
The poem makes use of repetition: "I love thee" is used eight times and
reflects the devotion the poet feels for her lover as well as the persistent
nature of that love. Repetition is also used in a list on line 2 "depth and
breadth and height" to suggest this poem is comprehensive; it aims to fully
define the poet's love. Repetition here also suggests breathlessness and
excitement.
Love is compared to weighty, important concepts like "Being and ideal
Grace", "Right" and "Praise". Browning's use of capital letters emphasises
these words.
The opening rhetorical question implies a conversation between lovers, and
the exclamation mark at the end of the first line makes the poem seem
lighthearted and playful. The speaker is responding enthusiastically to the
challenge of listing the ways in which she experiences love.
Lines become frequently broken up by punctuation by the end of the poem,
another suggestion that the speaker is excited. "I love thee with the breath,/
Smiles, tears, of all my life!". She is passionate in her explanation.
Attitudes, themes and ideas
Sonnet 43 presents the idea of love as powerful and all-encompassing; her
love enables her to reach otherwise impossible extremes:
I love thee to the depth and breadth and heightMy soul can reach, when
feeling out of sightFor the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
As well as the use of lists to imply the comprehension of her love, "feeling
out of sight" tells us that the speaker sees her love not as something tangible
but instinctive or even spiritual.
The poem is autobiographical [autobiographical: A text recounting the
writer's own life. ]: it refers to "my old griefs". (Browning had strong
disagreements with her parents and was eventually disinherited.) The passion
she applied to these "griefs" has been applied more positively to her love,
demonstrating that she sees love as a positive, powerful and life-changing
force.
Barrett Browning mentions her loss of religious faith in this sonnet: "I love
thee with a love I seemed to lose/With my lost Saints!" Her lover becomes
a spiritual saviour. She is not totally without faith, however: "if God
choose,/I shall but love thee better after death". Here she asserts the idea that
if God controls her future then she hopes to be reunited with her lover in the
afterlife.

Line-by-line Analysis of ‘Where I come from’ by Elizabeth Brewster
This is a free verse. The poem does not have any rhyme scheme. In fact, it
reads like prose.
1) The poet opens with a very profound statement saying that people and
their personalities are made up of features unique to places that they come
from.
2-3) She talks about how people display personality traits that are unique to
regions that they come from like jungles, mountains, coastal areas and the
tropics. What she means is that a region has a huge influence on the
personalities of the natives.
4) The poet begins her description with a setting that she does not feel at-
home in. she describes the cities and how the residents are quite at-ease with
the smell of smog due the pollution. She uses olfactory imagery here.
5) Brewster goes on to hint at a scent that she is familiar with but misses in
her urbanized dwelling. She talks about the missing the smell of tulips in
springtime.
6) The poet describes the city using vivid visual imagery of the landscape,
plotted into restricted areas due to the lack of space.
7) She describes man's need for peace and serenity amidst the fast-paced city
life. She talks about synthetic landscape features like fountains that are an
essential part of modern architecture in cities. She also uses olfactory
imagery to describe the typical scent of museums.
8) The synthetic look and feel of the city is described through her observance
of how even art is imprisoned in museums, and people have to go through
guidebooks to satiate their artistic pursuits.
9) She describes, with the use of olfactory imagery, the typical smell emitted
by offices and factories.
10) She describes, using tactile imagery, the chromium plated offices and the
scents that are associated with urban life.
11) She even mentions the typical smell of the subways at rush hours.
12-13) Brewster uses the second stanza like the sestet of a sonnet in which
she establishes the true intent behind writing the poem. She discloses the fact
that the Canadian woods with acres of pine trees is what she is familiar with
and yearns for.
14) She describes the contrast of the blueberries growing against
the backdrop the agricultural land burned to increase fertility.
15) Unlike the structures in the city, she describes the country farmhouses as
old wooden structures that are in need of paint.
16) She uses kinaesthetic imagery to describe open yards where hens and
ducks move around freely.
17-18) While describing the scene and using auditory imagery to hint at the
clucking sound made, she also talks about the old and run down schools that
offer an open view of wild violets growing in the country side.
19-20-21) Brewster highlights her strong feelings and emotions about human
identity tied to regions through a metaphor in which she personifies happy
and sad memories as spring and winter that dominate the human mind. She
talks about how memories of familiar things enable us to get through tough
times. The poet reveals where her heart lies. She believes that if you open the
door of the (metaphorical) mind you would feel the familiarity of the cold
winds blowing across the fields of snow, like she does.
Did you know??
The word imagery is associated with mental pictures. However, this idea is
but partially correct. Imagery, to be realistic, turns out to be more
multifaceted than just a picture. Read the following examples of imagery
carefully:
1. It was dark and shadowy in the forest. – The words “dark” and “shadowy”
are visual images.
2. He whiffed the aroma of brewed coffee. – “whiff” and “aroma” evoke our
sense of smell or olfactory sense.
3. The girl ran her hands on a soft satin fabric. – The idea of “soft” in
this example appeals to our sense of touch or tactile sense.
4. The fresh and juicy orange is very cold and sweet. – “ juicy” and
“sweet” when associated with oranges have an effect on our sense of
taste or gustatory sense.
5. The children were screaming and shouting in the meadows. –
“Screaming” and “shouting” appeal to our sense of hearing or
auditory sense.