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 |
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Page viii
... death or perpetual virginity—and virginity is presented in this comedy (despite the nobly chaste examples of Christ, St. Paul, and Queen Elizabeth) as a fate worse than death. Egeus is a familiar type, the interfering parent found in ...
... death or perpetual virginity—and virginity is presented in this comedy (despite the nobly chaste examples of Christ, St. Paul, and Queen Elizabeth) as a fate worse than death. Egeus is a familiar type, the interfering parent found in ...
Page xii
... death and night wolves howling at the moon, screech owls, shrouds, gaping graves. Associations of this sort go beyond mere sportiveness to the witchcraft and demonology involving spirits rising from the dead. Even Oberon's assurance ...
... death and night wolves howling at the moon, screech owls, shrouds, gaping graves. Associations of this sort go beyond mere sportiveness to the witchcraft and demonology involving spirits rising from the dead. Even Oberon's assurance ...
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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