A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
What happens when love loses all reason? Shakespeare answers: magic, mayhem, and a forest where the impossible becomes inevitable. Four young Athenians flee into the woods, escaping social expectation only to fall into something stranger, a realm where the fairy king Oberon and his mischievous sprite Puck wage their own petty war, manipulating humans for sport. A love potion goes astray. A man wakes believing he's loved an ass. Lovers who spent the night in each other's arms now swear they dreamed of someone else. Meanwhile, a group of bumbling amateur actors rehearse a tragic play about Pyramus and Thisbe, hilariously unaware of the magic swirling around them. By morning, the forest remakes everything: enemies become lovers, the impossible becomes real, and the Duke of Athens finds himself witnessing four unions instead of one. Shakespeare's most performed comedy endures because it captures something true about desire, that it cannot be commanded, only endured, and that we are all fools in love's kingdom.
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“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind. Nor hath love's mind of any judgment taste; Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste: And therefore is love said to be a child, Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd.””
— William Shakespeare
“Though she be but little, she is fierce!””
— William Shakespeare
“The course of true love never did run smooth; But, either it was different in blood,O cross! too high to be enthrall’d to low. Or else misgraffed in respect of years, O spite! too old to be engag’d to young. Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,O hell! to choose love by another’s eye.””
— William Shakespeare
“Lord, what fools these mortals be!””
— William Shakespeare
“And yet,to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.””
— William Shakespeare
“Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,Such shaping fantasies, that apprehendMore than cool reason ever comprehends.The lunatic, the lover and the poetAre of imagination all compact:One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt:The poet's eye, in fine frenzy rolling,Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;And as imagination bodies forthThe forms of things unknown, the poet's penTurns them to shapes and gives to airy nothingA local habitation and a name.””
— William Shakespeare
“My soul is in the sky.””
— William Shakespeare
“If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended,That you have but slumbered hereWhile these visions did appear.And this weak and idle theme,No more yielding but a dream,Gentles, do not reprehend:If you pardon, we will mend:And, as I am an honest Puck,If we have unearned luckNow to 'scape the serpent's tongue,We will make amends ere long;Else the Puck a liar call;So, good night unto you all.Give me your hands, if we be friends,And Robin shall restore amends.””
— William Shakespeare
“Are you sure That we are awake? It seems to me That yet we sleep, we dream””
— William Shakespeare
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Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night's Dream. Lex, lex-books.com/book/a-midsummer-night-s-dream-23d75bd0-558b-4b36-a291-20ff2445592c.Shakespeare, W. (n.d.). A Midsummer Night's Dream. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/a-midsummer-night-s-dream-23d75bd0-558b-4b36-a291-20ff2445592cShakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night's Dream. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/a-midsummer-night-s-dream-23d75bd0-558b-4b36-a291-20ff2445592c.


































