WORLD BOOK DAY

23 April is a symbolic date for world literature. Although this is a controversial matter, it seems that on this date in 1616, Cervantes, Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega all died. It is also the date of birth or death of other prominent authors such as, Vladimir Nabokov, Josep Pla and Manuel Mejía Vallejo.

We would like to commemorate the milestone with an extended celebration at school that includes the performance of the worldwide known play A Midsummer Night´s Dream by 1^st and 2^nd ESO students. You can get the tickets for free at the Auditorium Sabastián Cestero (Calle Real 4, 28229 Villanueva del Pardillo).  You can´t miss it!

A Midsummer Night´s Dream has always been one of Shakespeare´s most popular plays. It was probably written in 1595 or 1596, after Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet. It is thought that the play was originally written to be performed at a court wedding. The play begins and ends in Athens, but most of the action takes place in the wood outside Athens. The atmosphere of the wood is mysterious and magical.

It has been a source of inspiration for musicians like Mendelsson or Benjamin Britten, and also for film directors. There was a film version of it in 1999, featuring Michelle Pfeiffer as Titania. The play is about love, which is always popular with audiences. Theseus argues that love is a formal agreement between a man and a woman. Marriage is a profitable business and a public and a social phenomenon. This is why he tells Hermia to obey her father and marry Demetrius. Hermia and Lysander, on the other hand, argue that love is a very personal phenomenon. Part of the pleasure of the play is the way Shakespeare resolves these two different ideas about love with the weddings that take place at the end of the play.

Although Shakespeare is faithful to the tradition of using events from classical literature in the play, he is not interested in attempting a faithful reconstruction of the classical world. There are many references in the play to Elizabethan court structures and courtly entertainment. The Athens court of A Midsummer Night´s Dream has a lot more in common with an English court than a classical one. Anachronisms --that is things which are factually wrong because they did not exist at the time the play was set-- are not uncommon. For example, Theseus threatens to send Hermia to a convent if she persists in disobeying her father.