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
... story, meanwhile, is Italianate and Ovidian in tone and also, in the broadest sense, follows the conventions of plot in Plautus's and Terence's Roman comedies, although no particular source is known. Shakespeare's rich fairy lore, by ...
... story, meanwhile, is Italianate and Ovidian in tone and also, in the broadest sense, follows the conventions of plot in Plautus's and Terence's Roman comedies, although no particular source is known. Shakespeare's rich fairy lore, by ...
Page vii
... story of Pyramus and Thisbe, although it seems absurdly ill suited to a wedding, reminds us of the discord and potentially fatal misunderstandings that threaten even the best of relationships between men and women. For all his graceful ...
... story of Pyramus and Thisbe, although it seems absurdly ill suited to a wedding, reminds us of the discord and potentially fatal misunderstandings that threaten even the best of relationships between men and women. For all his graceful ...
Page viii
... story is distantly derived from Roman comedy, which conventionally celebrated the triumph of young love over the machinations of age and wealth. Lysander reminds u that “the course of true love never did run smooth," and he sees its ...
... story is distantly derived from Roman comedy, which conventionally celebrated the triumph of young love over the machinations of age and wealth. Lysander reminds u that “the course of true love never did run smooth," and he sees its ...
Page ix
... story, whether ending happily or sadly, is an evocation of love's difliculties in the face of social hostility and indifference. While Shakespeare uses several elements of Roman comedy in setting up the basic conflicts of his drama, he ...
... story, whether ending happily or sadly, is an evocation of love's difliculties in the face of social hostility and indifference. While Shakespeare uses several elements of Roman comedy in setting up the basic conflicts of his drama, he ...
Page xii
... story of Bottom and Titania is simultaneously classical and folk in nature. In a playfully classical mode, this love affair between a god and an earthy creature underscores humanity's double nature. Bottom himself becomes half man and ...
... story of Bottom and Titania is simultaneously classical and folk in nature. In a playfully classical mode, this love affair between a god and an earthy creature underscores humanity's double nature. Bottom himself becomes half man and ...
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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