- Paperback: 309 pages
- Publisher: Thomson Learning; 2nd New edition edition (6 Sep 1979)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0174436068
- ISBN-13: 978-0174436065
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.4 x 2.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
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- #1 in Books > Fiction > Poetry & Drama > Shakespeare, William > The Plays > A-Z > A Midsummer Night's Dream
- #4 in Books > Fiction > Poetry & Drama > Drama > By Period > Shakespeare
- #4 in Books > Fiction > Poetry & Drama > Shakespeare, William > The Plays > Comedies
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Traditionally seen as one of Shakespeare's more romantic and enchanting plays, A Midsummer Night's Dream has more recently been seen as a darker and more sinister play than generations of schoolchildren have ever imagined. The play has usually been seen as a comical tale with confused identities and the fickleness of youthful love, as the young lovers, Lysander, Hermia, Demetrius and Helena escape parental control and the "sharp Athenian law" of their elders by eloping into the forest outside the city. Unfortunately they stumble into civil war in fairyland, where King Oberon and Queen Titania fight over possession of a beautiful young Indian "changeling" boy. The appearance of the "rude mechanicals", a group of Athenian workers, including the weaver Nick Bottom, compounds the confusion. Chaos, confusion and "shaping fantasies" reign before the final settlement of the play, but underneath all the hilarity many critics have discerned more ambivalent attitudes towards coercive parental control, bestial sexuality and the destructive power of desire. These approaches in no way detract from the exquisite lyricism of many sections of the play, but make it a more complex and effective comedy than has often been appreciated. --Jerry Brotton
Product Description
The Arden Shakespeare is the established edition of Shakespeare's work. Justly celebrated for its authoritative scholarship and invaluable commentary, Arden guides you a richer understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare's plays.This edition of A Midsummer Night's Dream provides, a clear and authoritative text, detailed notes and commentary on the same page as the text, a full introduction discussing the critical and historical background to the play and appendices presenting sources and relevant extracts.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Terrific edition of a perfect play,
By Lovborg (London) - See all my reviews
This review is from: "A Midsummer Nights Dream" (Arden Shakespeare: Second Series) (Paperback)
There's nothing that you can write about "A Midsummer Night's Dream" that could hope to convey the glory, the comedy and the intelligence of the play.What you can hope to convey in this kind of a review is that this edition is the only one worth buying for serious study, with an excellent introduction.
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Arden Shakespeare - a student's dream,
By
This review is from: "A Midsummer Nights Dream" (Arden Shakespeare: Second Series) (Paperback)
Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", (written between 1590 and 1596), one of his best loved comedies and plays, needs no introduction or reviews here; if readers are looking for this type of material, there are more fruitful sources.As an educationalist, I recommend these excellent academic editions for anyone studying above GCSE level; for anyone below that, they contain far more information and detail than is required for their examination standard. GCSE level students have the Oxford and Cambridge editions (with helpful notes), the Wordsworth paperback for the text alone and a whole host of others. For those above this level, i.e. Advanced Level and beyond into graduate and post-graduate study, they have rightfully earned a great reputation for their comprehensive notes, annotations, source editions, topical allusions and other essential information for complete studies of his plays. These are excellent editions for anyone with a serious interest in Shakespeare after GCSE level. Highly Recommended and worth the money.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good students' edition,
By
This review is from: "A Midsummer Nights Dream" (Arden Shakespeare: Second Series) (Paperback)
The Dream is often one of the first Shakespeare plays that we read at school and it has a reputation of being frothy, romantic and lyrical. It certainly might be all of those things but it also has a far more sinister heart than it is often credited with. Rape, revenge, dark desire and imprisonment all haunt the text, from the background to the Theseus/Hippolyta 'romance' to Hermia's dream of having her heart eaten by a serpent while Lysander stands by and laughs.
It is also intensely self-conscious of its own status as a theatrical artefact, playing with the ideas of what is illusion and what reality with Theseus, himself a fictional and mythic character, voicing the rejection of fiction. The Arden editions aren't my favourite as I find the commentary intrusive, but Brooks does an excellent job of compiling Shakespeare's sources here. From Chaucer to Seneca as well as the more obvious Ovid, he uncovers some of the allusions which make this one of Shakespeare's most literary plays. By all means love this for its beautiful lyricism but a closer look uncovers a far darker world that just deepens our respect for this play.
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