- Peter Quince
In
William Shakespeare 's "A Midsummer Night's Dream ", Peter Quince is a carpenter that works inAthens . He is one of the six craftsmen (the mechanicals) that put on a play forTheseus andHippolyta at their wedding.Peter Quince meets
Nick Bottom the weaver,Francis Flute thebellows -mender,Tom Snout the tinker, Starveling thetailor , and Snug thejoiner in the woods. Quince directs their play ofPyramus and Thisbe .In the play, he recites the prologue, but struggles to fit his lines into the meter and to make them rhyme. The Nobles interject to point out his errors. In the rehearsals he is seen in a managerial role even though most people believe Nick Bottom to be the more knowledgable individual.
Peter Quince is the director of the play that they perform to the duke and his wife.
His name is derived from “quines” or “quoins”, which are wooden wedges used by carpenters.
The character is obliquely alluded to in the title of a
Wallace Stevens poem, "Peter Quince at the Clavier".Traditionally, Peter Quince is portrayed as an extremely bookish character, caught up in the minute details of his play.Fact|date=May 2008 But very recently, as seen in the 1999 film version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", actors have portrayed him as a strong character extremely capable of being a director. It is he who leads the search party looking for
Nick Bottom in the middle of the play. Some directors have even gone so far as to portray him as a woman with a secret love for Bottom (in the tradition of Shakespearean love stories, underlings also find love), often renamed Beatrice Quince.Fact|date=May 2008
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