A Midsummer Night's Dream (Dover Thrift Editions: Plays)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 048627067X ISBN 13: 9780486270678

Publisher: Dover Publications, 1992

Perhaps the most popular of all of Shakespeare's comedies, A Midsummer Night's Dream humorously celebrates the vagaries of love. The approaching wedding festivities of Theseus, Duke of Athens, and his bride-to-be, Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, are delightfully crisscrossed with in-again, off-again romances of two young pairs of Athenian lovers; a fateful rivalry between the King and Queen of the Fairies; and the theatrical aspirations of a bumbling troupe of Athenian laborers. It all ends happily in wedding-night revelry complete with a play-within-a-play presented by the laborers to the ecstatic amusement of all. This edition, complete with explanatory footnotes, is reprinted from a standard British edition.

Book Description:

An active approach to classroom Shakespeare enables students to inhabit Shakespeare's imaginative world in accessible and creative ways. Students are encouraged to share Shakespeare's love of language, interest in character and sense of theatre. Substantially revised and extended in full colour, classroom activities are thematically organised in distinctive 'Stagecraft', 'Write about it', 'Language in the play', 'Characters' and 'Themes' features. Extended glossaries are aligned with the play text for easy reference. Expanded endnotes include extensive essay-writing guidance for 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' and Shakespeare. Includes rich, exciting colour photos of performances of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' from around the world.

From the Publisher:

An exciting new edition of the complete works of Shakespeare with these features: Illustrated with photographs from New York Shakespeare Festival productions, vivid readable readable introductions for each play by noted scholar David Bevington, a lively personal foreword by Joseph Papp, an insightful essay on the play in performance, modern spelling and pronunciation, up-to-date annotated bibliographies, and convenient listing of key passages.