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 v
... Titania's evocation of her bond of affection with her votaress “in the spiced lndian air by night" (Z.1.1Z3—37) to Oberon's memory of a mermaid singing on a dolphins back (Z.1.150—4). Containing the highest percentage of rhymed verse in ...
... Titania's evocation of her bond of affection with her votaress “in the spiced lndian air by night" (Z.1.1Z3—37) to Oberon's memory of a mermaid singing on a dolphins back (Z.1.150—4). Containing the highest percentage of rhymed verse in ...
Page vi
... Titania's name from the Metamorphoses, where it is used as an epithet for both Diana and Circe. At the same time, in his creation of Mustardseed, Cobweb, Mote, and Peaseblossom, Shakespeare also pays homage to a rich body of unwritten ...
... Titania's name from the Metamorphoses, where it is used as an epithet for both Diana and Circe. At the same time, in his creation of Mustardseed, Cobweb, Mote, and Peaseblossom, Shakespeare also pays homage to a rich body of unwritten ...
Page vii
... Titania (also, frequently, Philostrate and Puck). The broadly comic action of Bottom the \X/eaver and his companions is drawn into the overall design by means of their deciding to use the forest of Athens as the place where they will ...
... Titania (also, frequently, Philostrate and Puck). The broadly comic action of Bottom the \X/eaver and his companions is drawn into the overall design by means of their deciding to use the forest of Athens as the place where they will ...
Page viii
... Titania a lesson for trying to keep a changeling boy from him, Oberon relents and eventually frees Titania from her debasing enchantment. She does not reproach him with so much as a word when she is awakened from her “vision.” Even so ...
... Titania a lesson for trying to keep a changeling boy from him, Oberon relents and eventually frees Titania from her debasing enchantment. She does not reproach him with so much as a word when she is awakened from her “vision.” Even so ...
Page ix
... Titania and Bottom— undergo a transforming experience engineered by the mischievous Puck. This experience demonstrates the universal power of love, which can overcome the queen of fairies as readily as the lowliest of humans. It also ...
... Titania and Bottom— undergo a transforming experience engineered by the mischievous Puck. This experience demonstrates the universal power of love, which can overcome the queen of fairies as readily as the lowliest of humans. It also ...
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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