A Midsummer Night's DreamMagic, love spells, and an enchanted wood provide the materials for one of Shakespeare’s most delightful comedies. When four young lovers, fleeing the Athenian law and their own mismatched rivalries, take to the forest of Athens, their lives become entangled with a feud between the King and Queen of the Fairies. Some Athenian tradesmen, rehearsing a play for the forthcoming wedding of Duke Theseus and his bride, Hippolyta, unintentionally add to the hilarity. The result is a marvelous mix-up of desire and enchantment, merriment and farce, all touched by Shakespeare’s inimitable vision of the intriguing relationship between art and life, dreams and the waking world. Each Edition Includes: • Comprehensive explanatory notes • Vivid introductions and the most up-to-date scholarship • Clear, modernized spelling and punctuation, enabling contemporary readers to understand the Elizabethan English • Completely updated, detailed bibliographies and performance histories • An interpretive essay on film adaptations of the play, along with an extensive filmography |
From inside the book
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Page vi
... Theseus, the four young lovers, the fairies, and the “rude mechanicals” or would-be actors. Felix Mendelssohn's incidental music for the play evokes the contrasting textures of the various groups: Theseus's hunting horns and ceremonial ...
... Theseus, the four young lovers, the fairies, and the “rude mechanicals” or would-be actors. Felix Mendelssohn's incidental music for the play evokes the contrasting textures of the various groups: Theseus's hunting horns and ceremonial ...
Page vii
... Theseus's wedding, they exchange jealous accusations: Oberon accuses his queen of being overly partial to Theseus, while she is critical of Oberon's attentions to I-Iippolyta. These plots of the Athenian and the fairy monarchs are drawn ...
... Theseus's wedding, they exchange jealous accusations: Oberon accuses his queen of being overly partial to Theseus, while she is critical of Oberon's attentions to I-Iippolyta. These plots of the Athenian and the fairy monarchs are drawn ...
Page viii
... Theseus's cheerful preoccupation with marriage, his court embodies at first a stern attitude toward young love. As administrator of the law, Theseus must accede to the remorseles demands of Hermia's father, Egeus. The inflexible ...
... Theseus's cheerful preoccupation with marriage, his court embodies at first a stern attitude toward young love. As administrator of the law, Theseus must accede to the remorseles demands of Hermia's father, Egeus. The inflexible ...
Page ix
... Theseus's rather complacent acceptance of the law's inequity. Spurned by an unfeeling social order, Lysander and Heriiiia are compelled to elope. To be sure, in the end Egeus proves to be no formidable threat; even he must admit the ...
... Theseus's rather complacent acceptance of the law's inequity. Spurned by an unfeeling social order, Lysander and Heriiiia are compelled to elope. To be sure, in the end Egeus proves to be no formidable threat; even he must admit the ...
Page xiv
... Theseus's valuable reminder that all art is only “illusion” is thus juxtaposed with Bottom's insistence that imaginative art has a reality of its own. Theseus above all embodies the sophistication of the court in his description of art ...
... Theseus's valuable reminder that all art is only “illusion” is thus juxtaposed with Bottom's insistence that imaginative art has a reality of its own. Theseus above all embodies the sophistication of the court in his description of art ...
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Common terms and phrases
actors appear Athenian Athens bear blood BOTTOM Cobweb comedy comes court dance dark dead dear death Demetrius desire director doth draw Egeus Elizabethan Enter Exeunt Exit experience eyes face fair fairies fall fear flower FLUTE follow forest four friends gentle give gone grace hand hast hate hath head hear heart Helena Hermia Hippolyta hold human imagination Italy kill kind King lady leave light lion live look lord lovers Lysander means meet Midsummer Night's Dream moon never night noble Oberon once performance perhaps play present production Puck Pyramus and Thisbe Queen QUINCE rest Robin seems sense Shakespeare sleep Snout speak spirit stage stand stay story sweet tell theater thee Theseus Theseus's things thou thought Titania tongue tradition transformed translated true turn wall wonder wood young