A Midsummer Night's Dream
1600
A Midsummer Night's Dream
1600
In a moonlit forest outside Athens, Shakespeare unleashes his most potent enchantment: love as a force both ridiculous and dangerous. Four young lovers flee the city's rigid laws, only to stumble into a realm where the fairy king and queen battle over a changeling boy, and a mischievous sprite named Puck runs wild with a flower that makes people love whatever they first see. The results are catastrophic and hilarious. Meanwhile, a troop of amateur actors rehearsing a play for the Duke's wedding venture into the same woods, where one unfortunate soul gets a donkey's head and a fairy queen for a lover. What begins as a comedy of errors becomes something stranger: a meditation on how love transforms us, makes fools of us, and refuses to obey reason. Four centuries later, A Midsummer Night's Dream still captures that feeling when desire hijacks your better judgment and the world turns strange.
Editions
X-Ray
“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
Link to this book
Add a free, dofollow link to Lex on your blog, forum, syllabus, or reading list.
<a href="https://lex-books.com/book/a-midsummer-night-s-dream-be25fb0a-79a5-44d3-a7cb-27f8d610bf59"><img src="https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg" alt="Read A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare free on Lex" width="160" height="40"></a>[](https://lex-books.com/book/a-midsummer-night-s-dream-be25fb0a-79a5-44d3-a7cb-27f8d610bf59)[url=https://lex-books.com/book/a-midsummer-night-s-dream-be25fb0a-79a5-44d3-a7cb-27f8d610bf59][img]https://lex-books.com/badges/read-on-lex.svg[/img][/url]Read A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare free on Lex: https://lex-books.com/book/a-midsummer-night-s-dream-be25fb0a-79a5-44d3-a7cb-27f8d610bf59Cite this book
Reading this edition for a paper or guide? Copy a citation.
Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night's Dream. Lex, lex-books.com/book/a-midsummer-night-s-dream-be25fb0a-79a5-44d3-a7cb-27f8d610bf59.Shakespeare, W. (1600). A Midsummer Night's Dream. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/a-midsummer-night-s-dream-be25fb0a-79a5-44d3-a7cb-27f8d610bf59Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night's Dream. Lex. https://lex-books.com/book/a-midsummer-night-s-dream-be25fb0a-79a5-44d3-a7cb-27f8d610bf59.


































