How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare (4 page)

A nodding violet
(photo credit 4.1)

Woodbine, muskroses
, and
eglantine
are three more types of flowers. (I guess we know that we’re on a bank of flowers by this time.)
Overcanopied
is a word that Shakespeare invented, and we can guess that it means just what it sounds like: that the flowers form a canopy over the ground, or perhaps even over the head of the person lying on the ground.

Quite overcanopied

Quite overcanopied

with luscious woodbine
,

with luscious woodbine
,

The word
luscious
is a pretty wonderful choice, isn’t it? Not just
delicious
. Not just
mouthwatering
. But
luscious
: something so delicious that you lust after it.

Memorization Tips

Line-into-Line Tip

Here’s a good trick that my children and I use all the time: Because it’s easy to get stuck at the end of a line where there’s a natural pause, have your kids learn the beginning of a new line by making it sound like part of the line before it. So in this case you would say:

violet grows quite overcanopied

violet grows quite overcanopied

Now watch how much easier it is to recite the passage:

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows
,

Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows
,

Quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine

And now let’s add the fourth line of the passage.

With sweet muskroses, and with eglantine
.

This time have your children say the whole line without breaking the line in half. I’ll bet they’re ready for it:

With sweet muskroses, and with eglantine
.

Best Tip Ever

We’re now ready for the best tip in this book. You’ll use it again and again during your study of Shakespeare.

USE THE NATURAL RHYTHM OF THE LINES TO HELP MEMORIZE THEM.

The natural rhythm of the last two lines is as follows:

∧ ∧ ∧ ∧ ∧

QUITE
over
CAN
opied with
LUSC
ious
WOODBINE
,

∧ ∧ ∧ ∧ ∧

With
SWEET
musk
ROSE
s, and with
EG-LAN-TINE
.

The way to teach these lines to your children so that they’ll never forget them is to set up a kind of marching rhythm, then chant the lines to the rhythm.

BOM! (rest) BOM! (rest) BOM BOM BOM!

∧ ∧ ∧ ∧ ∧

QUITE
over
CAN
opied with
LUSC
ious
WOODBINE
,

∧ ∧ ∧ ∧ ∧

With
SWEET
musk
ROSE
s, and with
EG-LAN-TINE
.

BOM! (rest) BOM! (rest) BOM BOM BOM!

Professional actors use techniques like this all the time. The important thing is to say the words out loud and let the natural rhythm of the line take over. In our family, we played a form of patty-cake with lines like these, clapping out the rhythms on the palms of each other’s hands and on our knees. We started doing it when the kids were six years old, but to be honest, we continued it for the next four or five years. It sounds silly, but we enjoyed it and it worked wonders.

There sleeps Titania sometime of the night
,

Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight
.

And there the snake throws her enameled skin
,

Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in
.

And with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes

And make her full of hateful fantasies
.

(
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
,
Act II, Scene 1, lines 61–66)

Y
our children have learned the first four lines of the passage. Now let’s teach them the last six lines. We’ll do it much more quickly. (It takes a lot less time to use these techniques than it does to read about them.)

There sleeps Titania sometime of the night
,

Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight
.

And there the snake throws her enameled skin
,

Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in
.

And with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes

And make her full of hateful fantasies
.

I’m not going to insult your intelligence by describing all the repetition you’ll want to use with your children to teach them this passage. I’ll only insult your intelligence a little bit with a few reminders along the way. For now, please remember the three cardinal rules:

There Sleeps Titania
by Frederick Howard Michael
(photo credit 5.1)

1. Use the Quotation Pages, with their easy print and spacing,

2. Say the lines aloud, and

3. Repeat them again and again. The repetition will pay off.

Here is part of one of the Quotation Pages you’ll need:

Lulled in these flowers

with dances and delight
.

And there the snake

throws her enameled skin
,

Weed wide enough

to wrap a fairy in
.

And with the juice of this

I’ll streak her eyes

And make her full of

hateful fantasies
.

The Main Characters

Titania is one of the main characters in the play. She’s Queen of the Fairies, and her husband, who is King of the Fairies, is named Oberon. Oberon has a helper who is a type of fairy called a puck, and his name is Robin Goodfellow. Sometimes he’s referred to as Puck, as if Puck were his name.

Oberon, Titania, and Robin Goodfellow form the nucleus of one of the four plots in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
. Basically, Shakespeare dreamed up the idea of setting a comedy partly in the real world of thwarted lovers and an angry father, and partly in the world of a fairy kingdom. During the course of the play, a young couple who want to get married flee the girl’s overly strict father and run into a nearby forest—which happens to be the forest where the fairies live.

Titania (Vivien Leigh)
(photo credit 5.2)

As the Fairies’ Plot begins, Oberon and Titania are having a fight over the custody of a young Indian boy. Titania wants to raise the boy herself and make him her page, while Oberon wants the boy to be his servant. When Titania refuses to give the boy up, she and Oberon have an earth-shattering argument. (It is literally earth-shattering, because when these two otherworldly creatures argue, it causes floods and earthquakes.) The speech that we’re learning occurs at the very moment when Puck has brought Oberon a magic flower. The flower (which has the beautiful but rather odd name
love-in-idleness
) has the power to make someone who is sleeping fall instantly in love with the next live creature that he sees when he wakes up.

There sleeps Titania sometime of the night
,

Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight
.

And there the snake throws her enameled skin
,

Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in
.

And with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes

And make her full of hateful fantasies
.

This speech could be called Oberon’s Revenge. Basically, what he’s saying is, “I know where Titania sleeps. It’s at that bank of flowers with the thyme and the woodbine. I’ll go find her, and while she’s asleep, I’ll streak her eyes with the juice of this magic flower. That way, when she wakes up, she’ll fall in love with the first horrible creature that she sees. What a great way to revenge myself. Titania will fall in love with a monster!”

One of the reasons we know exactly what Oberon is thinking is that he has told us about his scheme a few minutes earlier in the same scene. Read this speech aloud with your children.

OBERON

Having once this juice
,

I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep

And drop the liquor of it in her eyes
.