Customer Reviews

A Midsummer Night's Dream (Oxford Shakespeare)

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4 star:		(1)
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If you are studying the text for a paper or getting it up on it's feet for a play, I highly recommend this publisher. Lines notes and Folio version notes, the only text like it on the market.

My only complaint is that it makes it difficult to use in rehearsals and on stage. I use the Penguin for working on my feet because they give you all notes at the end.

But for all the prep work needed to really flush out a character, you can't beat this copy.

It's neither the best nor worst of Shakespeare's many comedies, but "A Midsummer Night's Dream" definitely holds one honor -- it's the most fantastical of his works. This airy little comedy is filled with fairies, spells, love potions and romantic mixups, with only the bland human lovers making things a little confusing (who's in love with whom again?).

As Athens prepares for the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta, the fusty Egeus is demanding that his daughter Hermia marry the man he's chosen for her, Demetrius. Her only other options are death or nunhood.

Since she's in love with a young man named Lysander (no, we never learn why her dad hates Lysander), Hermia refuses, and the two of them plot to escape Athens and marry elsewhere. But Helena, a girl who has been kicked to the curb by Demetrius, tips him off about their plans; he chases Hermia and Lysander into the woods, with Helena following him all the way. Are you confused yet?

But on this same night, the fairy king Oberon and his queen Titania are feuding over a little Indian boy. Oberon decides to use a magical "love juice" from a flower to cause some trouble for Titania by making her fall in love with some random weaver named Nick Bottom (whom his henchman Puck has turned into a donkey-headed man). He also decides to have Puck iron out the four lovers' romantic troubles with the same potion. But of course, hijinks ensue.

"A Midsummer Night's Dream" is another one of Shakespeare's plays that REALLY needs to be seen before it's read. Not only is it meant to be seen rather than read, but the tangle of romantic problems and hijinks are a little difficult to follow... okay, scratch that. They can be VERY difficult to follow, especially if you need to keep the four lovers straight.

But despite those small flaws, Shakespeare is in rare form here -- the story floats along in an enchanted haze of fairy magic, forest groves, and a love square that twists in on itself. And Shakespeare's lush, haunting poetry is absolutely lovely here ("With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine/There sleeps Titania sometime of the night/Lull'd in these flowers with dances and delight...").

But he also packs it with plenty of hilarity -- not only is it funny to read about the haughty fairy queen fawning over a guy with a donkey head (Nick Bottom = "ass's head", get it?), but there's plenty of funny moments in the dialogue ("Thisby, the flowers of odious savours sweet...").

The four main lovers are relatively bland and interchangeable, and we never find out much about them except that Helena is kind of stalkerish and not too bright (she tips off the guy she likes that the girl HE likes is eloping so he can stop her?). The real draws are the fairy creatures -- Titania and Oberon are proud alien creatures filled with both cruelty and kindness, and Puck is delightfully mischievous and.... puckish.

"A Midsummer Night's Dream" is a shimmering little concoction of magic, romantic mayhem and fairy squabbling. Absolutely stunning.

This play by Shakespeare has had a tremendous influence. First it was trasnformed into an opera by Purcell under the title of The Fairy Queen. Second it was widely known in Germany at the time of Goethe, but under the title of The Walpurgis Night. Goethe himself alludes to it in Faust and composes his Walpurgis Night at the end of the Faust as the prolongation of the end of Shakespeare's play. What is interesting in this play is the fact that the world of spirits, the night in the forest are used as elements to create a marvellous and light comedy. No witchcraft in all this. An entertaining though slightly grotesque tale. The Queen and King of the fairies use their powers to make fun of simple men, even providing Bottoms with the head of an ass (an old practice from the Middle Ages when the bishop of the pope were shown as being asses in the Masses of Fools or of Asses, some « carnival » rites authorised by the Church). But what is most important in this play is the fact that the fairies, with all their antics, make three marriages possible, and that is the end of the play. Three marriages, two times three people, three men and three women, the sacred number of Salomon. This ending is a christian ending. And when we add to these three marriages the couple of the Queen and King of Fairies, we come to the number of four couples, which is the sign of perfect equilibrium in Shakespeare. We find such a umber (four marriages) in As you Like It. Finally the whole play, or nearly it all, takes place in the night, the realm of Selene, the goddess of the night and the moon, who is only one of the three facets of Diana, the goddess of forests, animal life and hunting, whose third facet is Hecate, the goddess of death. This threeforld nature of Diana is constantly present in the play. It is the very symbol of the fairies. We must understand that for Shakespeare three is the number of disruption, chaos and the fairies bring chaos, though, in the end perfect equilibrium is achieved. The last element concerns the style of Shakespeare. He adapts his style to every character, moving from the highest and most perfect poetry with the King and Queen of fairies or with Theseus and Hippolyta, to a very simple language with the six (six again) craftsmen who prepare a play for Theseus and Hippolyta's wedding. In other words it is a light comedy that carries Shakespeare's whole art in its lines. A perfect introduction to this art, and with a lot of fun, thanks to the pranks fo Puck, a light-headed fairy of his own.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

I loved this book so much. This story is just so magical with mischevious Puck and glimmering Titania. I enjoyed this book from cover to cover!

I can't believe how you nice little English people can actually edit such terrible and unbelievable books! I hope you'll never ever get another book published!