Activity 5.5

Directions: Use one of the BOYFANS to join simple sentences below. Be sure to add a comma where needed.

(1). Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream was written around 1595 _________ audiences enjoy seeing it performed today.

(2). This play is often referred to as a comedy of errors __________ its characters find themselves in one confusing situation after another.

(3). Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream refers to the English tradition of “midsummer night,” the day before Saint John the Baptist’s festival, ___________ Shakespeare’s audiences associated this night with magic, merrymaking, and witchcraft.

(4). This play has four subplots _______ at times it can be challenging to understand.

(5). The play begins with a scene between Theseus and Hippolyta, an aristocratic couple engaged to be married, _______ these characters do not appear again until Act IV.

(6). Throughout the rest of the play, little supernatural beings known as fairies intervene in the human world ______ no character except Bottom ever gets to see them.

(7). The playful fairies are not rational _________ are they responsible.

(8). Due to the fairies’ intervention, several strange events occur on a midsummer evening _________ later none of the characters can clearly recall what happened.

(9). A Midsummer Night’s Dream portrays love as being inconstant __________ it represents lovers as being fools.

(10). A Midsummer Night’s Dream could be read as a play-within-a-play __________ it could be read as a comedy about human folly.

Activity 5.5

Directions: Read these sentences for their meaning. Then fill in the BE WISE AT WAR word that best expresses the relationship between the two clauses. Be sure to add a comma if needed in the space provided.

1. ________ Emily Dickinson is now regarded as one of the best American poets of the nineteenth century ______ she was virtually unknown to the literary world until after her death.

2. Born on December 10, 1830, Dickinson lived her entire life in Amherst, Massachusetts, _________ she had several romantic interests in her youth ______ she never married.

3. Like other unwed women in nineteenth century New England, she gradually withdrew from society. In fact, she never left home ________ she turned forty.

4. Many literary critics have speculated that Dickinson became a recluse __________ she suffered from a broken heart. Moreover, they often interpret her poetry based on her biography.

5. Yet to read Dickinson’s personal life into her poems does injustice to them _________ she did write many love poems _______ critics will never know if they are products of her experiences or her imagination.

6. _________ she had very little emotional or intellectual contact with the outside world after 1870 ________ many people have wondered what her literary influences were.

7. Dickinson appears to have forged a style all her own _________ she had access to approximately 1,000 books in her family’s library.

8. Her only connection to the literary world of her day was a minor author and critic named T.W. Higginson. _________ he could not understand Dickinson’s poems _____ he encouraged her not to publish them.

9. _________ Dickinson died in 1886 ________ her sister discovered nearly two thousand poems tucked away in her dresser.

10. __________ it were not for this fortunate discovery _____ Emily Dickinson’s poetic insights into life, love, and death would have remained completely unknown to the literary world.

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