A Midsummer Night's Dream

by William Shakespeare

David Bevington (Editor) and David Scott Kastan (Editor)

Magic, 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

• ISBN10: 0553213008
• ISBN13: 9780553213003
• Publish Date: 1 January 1988 (first published 26 February 1900)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 30 June 2010
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc
• Imprint: Bantam Doubleday Dell
• Edition: Annotated edition
• Format: Paperback (US Mass Market)
• Pages: 224
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780553213003

Reviews

[leahrosereads]

I listened to this on audio and read along. With the full cast and the words in front of me, it really helped bring this story to life. I thoroughly enjoyed it and plan on going this route with William Shakespeare's other work in the future.

[clq]

I've been meaning to catch up on various Shakespeare plays that "everyone" has read, and after finishing a book and having no immediate plans for what to read next, A Midsummer Night's Dream was conveniently waiting for me on my Kindle.
In short, I didn't really like reading it much. I can see how it would probably work much better on stage, but read as a book it didn't really do much for me.
If I ever get the opportunity to see it on stage I probably will, and I'll be prepared to be pleasantly surprised at how well it can work as a play.
That said, I do enjoy poems, and I found the lyrical nature of the dialogue, the rhythm and the rhyme, to be quite fun. But as a story I just didn't really appreciate it as much as I had expected.

I started the novel off with a major headache, as I tried to analyse and understand each sentence carefully, which was a complete mistake. After my headache went away, I decided to give this book another try, using a different approach. I stopped analysing and I started reading. At first understanding the play was difficult, but when I got to the end, I had to admit that Shakespeare was a genius!

Hermia is in love with Lysander, but Hermia's father wants her to marry Demetrius. Helena loves Demetrius, but unfortunately, he loves Hermia. The situation is extremely complex, but at the same time, the couples are melodramatic and this creates a whole load of comedy. This comedic situation, coupled with uneducated workmen putting on a play, the king or queen of the faries arguing over an Indian boy and a love-juice that makes a person fall in love with the first thing they see, creates plenty of problems and one solution.

A Midsummer Night's Dream was written in the 16th century, but it is still relatable to people living in the 20th century. This play is clever, funny and Puck totally stole the show.

[clementine]

Oh, another one I forgot to review. Once again, I am not really into writing a whole lot about this one, but I liked it more than I expected to. I read it in grade 9 (first Shakespeare play, holla) and wasn't all that impressed, and generally I like the tragedies a lot better than the comedies. But the second time around, I did really enjoy it. There's a lot going on, and it's much darker than it seems on the surface. And when you have the Shakespearean context it's that much more enjoyable. I also really enjoyed the fantastical world, because, come on, fairies. Why not?