Change and transformation are central to the action, themes and language of A Midsummer Night's Dream. In this lucid study Helen Hackett shows how the play participates in a widespread 1590s concern with mutability; often, as here, expressed through moon-imagery, and associated with representations of the ageing Virgin Queen. However, it is also very much a play about procreative change, set at one of the 'green hinges' of the year, to use Angela Carter's phrase. The happy ending is marked by multiple marriages; and yet, these marriages have been achieved through conflict and force. Comedy veers close to tragedy, and vice versa in the inset Pyramus and Thisbe performance, illustrating Shakespeare's sense of the innate indeterminacy of genres. It is also Shakespeare's most Spenserian play in its depiction of a supernaturally animated natural world, providing the grounds for the characterization of Shakespeare as a poet of nature which was to prove so influential for Milton and the Romantics.
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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 and 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
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Thanks, good Egeus. What's the news with thee? Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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3 of 11 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Mass Market Paperback
This is, quite frankly, the best play in the whole word. I cannot describe in words how absolutely amazing this piece is. It involves so many themes and issues, including love, desire, magic and comedy. All of the characters are fantastic, particularly the mischevious 'Puck'; "Lord, what fools these mortals be". 'Midsummer' tells the story of story of two opposing worlds colliding, the human world and the fairy world, with hilarious circumstances. I would recommend this play to anyone, Shakespeare fan or not, and I guarentee you'll love it.
A masterpiece. Possibly the best piece ever witten.
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Limited Notes in a Good Edition
3 Feb 2004
By richard_t
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Mass Market Paperback
As with all the plays in the Penguin series, the editors have made good choices where there are textual differences between Quarto and Folio, and there are good little essays on Shakespeare and his times. On the other hand, the text notes are limited and stuck at the end, where only a dedicated browser will find them.
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