A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s most popular and enduring comedies, and one of his most imaginative. In this play, Shakespeare effectively invents the fairy world as we still picture it today: fairies are small, mischievous, playful, and surprisingly powerful, delighting in confusion and interference in human lives. Characters such as Oberon, Titania, and especially Puck help establish these traits. Puck, the clever and irresponsible trickster of the play, is a clear ancestor of later comic figures such as Bugs Bunny.

The play is saturated with enchantment. Spells, charms, and dreamlike transformations shape the action, while Shakespeare uses an unusually wide range of verse forms. Rhyming lines, shifting meters, and musical language give the play a light, airborne quality that perfectly suits its magical subject.

Running alongside the lovers’ story is one of Shakespeare’s greatest comic inventions: a group of well-meaning but hopeless Athenian tradesmen who attempt the Herculean task of writing and staging a classical tragedy for the Duke of Athens. Their efforts produce some of the funniest scenes Shakespeare ever wrote.

Relatively easy to read and follow, A Midsummer Night’s Dream makes an excellent introduction to Shakespeare and Elizabethan drama.

Our Story: There is no suspenseful plot to A Midsummer’s Night Dream. Theseus, the Duke of Athens, is impatient to marry his beloved, the Amazon Queen Hippolyta, so, he commands his retinue to provide him with entertainment and festivities to fill the time until four days have passed, after which he may be wedded. A bit of drama is provided when Hermia refuses her father’s command to marry the young nobleman Demetrius; instead, she plans to elope with Lysander. Meanwhile, a group of inept tradesmen prepare to present a play to Theseus. But no one’s plans are carried off, thanks to the interference of the mischievous fairy Puck, who delights in playing tricks and pranks on his human victims.

Download A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

On-line Reading:
Annotated Edition, pdf

White Background for Printing:
Annotated Edition, pdf

Theatre Script:
A Midsummer Night’s Dream Script