Name: A Midsummer Night's Dream
Rating: 3.883021390374331 (748 reviews)
ISBN: 9780774032179

Coles Notes Staff

William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night's Dream

A midsummer night's dream

Tim Pendry

One of the plays by Shakespeare that remains in the first rank of choices for theatre performance today, 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' (1595/1596) is always hard to categorise. At one level it is a conventional comedy of love thwarted and then reconciled but it is clearly more than that. Shakespeare weaves the world of faery with a peculiar Elizabethan reinterpretation of antiquity, with a satirical and thoughtful commentary on theatre and the imagination and with that periodic interest of early modern drama, the very nature of reality (vide Calderon's 'Life is a Dream' (1630)). The misimagining of antiquity is in itself intriguing. The law of Athens would have Hermia sent to her death or a nunnery for her defiance of her father - a very Catholic Ancient Greece! The faeries are folklorically English but might equally be a debased and whimsical version of the Gods. The attraction of the play (which is one of the more accessible linguistically in performance) lies in the way Shakespeare transports the audience through the magic of words into an alternative reality which contains romantic aspiration and learned nostalgia in equal proportion. It is the quintessential play about the business of play and the conversion of the suspension of disbelief into a reality very different from the reality of the materiality of stage, actors and costumes. What it does is done today by Netflix but Shakespeare reveals the magic and yet it stays magical. This is a remarkable psychological achievement even if it may say just as much about the suggestability of our species and our yearning to believe in something different from our mundane world. The moon is positioned early as presiding over the play. The dark is key to the plot. The play often speaks direct to the audience. To cap it all, we have a very mundane play within the play in the comical drama placed before Theseus and the 'gentles' of 'Pyramus and Thisbe' (not forgetting the wall and the lion) which dominates the final Act. This play within the play is often neglected in contemporary analyses in their obsession with imposing gender politics on the work but it is important, if only in highlighting the class-conscious snobbery of the author towards working men. The message is that the world of dreams and true imagination is only for the educated elite (despite the rather weird version of classical lore exhibited here) and that the clod-hopping working classes are there to be laughed at (by gentles) or (if Theseus) patronised. It seems convenient to forget this. Those who can ignore this unjustified elitism and even satiric cruelty can nevertheless appreciate the manipulative genius of Shakespeare. The English faery subsequently became a safe semi-erotic aspiration towards freedom, to the spirit of paganism, in English culture in good part thanks to Will. The play is an exercise in the uneasy balance between duty and pleasure, the law and the imagination, the State and the wild, obedience and freedom. The tension is indirect but it underpins the 'frisson' the play causes in audiences even today. If only, if only, if only ... and yet, it says.

Gelaine Trinidad

thoroughly enjoyed the dramatized audio edition as well ~ 
ah, bottom
aaah, puck

Rupert Everett

Michael Hoffman

Leslie Urdang

Two pairs of star-crossed lovers, a troop of inept amateur actors, a feuding pair of supernatural sprites and a love potion gone awry all come together in an enchanted moonlit forest.

William Shakespeare's A Midsummer night's dream

ameera

Le Songe d'une nuit d'été

It was surprisingly very funny. Shakespeare was one funny dude. 

Romy

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Amelia

Shakespeare's popular comedy of love and mistaken identity is accompanied by a section on reading Shakespeare's language, information on Shakespeare's life and theater, explanatory notes, annotated reading lists, and an essay

So far it's my favourite Shakespeare play, can't wait to read the others! It's honestly a fun read compared to darker and more in depth plays like Macbeth. It's also very easy to understand. The romance is a bit skimmed through but keep in mind it's a comedy.

Vedha Chelot

A. R. Braunmuller

Stephen Orgel

Russ McDonald

Midsummer Night's Dream

olivia musick

Anna Brunner

Read this w kendall & brody.. they ruined it. Still fun tho

laila

Mary Horton

Don't mind me, I'm just over here spending the last days of summer break reading Shakespeare and enjoying the pure chaos of this play.

in other words: yes, of course I enjoyed it. mischievous fairies, ethereal forests, savage Shakespearean insults, lyrical poetry, and self-aware comedy? what's not to love??

3.5 stars

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Reviews

Highlights