An adorable, charming play. Magical woods, love potions, fairies, all my favorite things.

Fairies protecting their queen while she sleeps:
You spotted snakes with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen.
Newts and blindworms, do no wrong.
Come not near our fairy queen

A sprite describing the hour of midnight:
Now it is the time of night
That the graves all gaping wide,
Every one lets forth his sprite,
In the churchway paths to glide.

When the king and queen of fairies argue
“all their elves for fear
Creep into acorn cups and hide them there.”
Frightened elves hiding in acorn cups!

Yey! The very first Shakespeare that I read from cover to cover! Sneer if you have to but I graduated from a low-standard high school in a small island in the Pacific. The only dramatization that we did was Leon Ma. Guerrero's My Brother Leon Brought Home a Wife. I played the lead role of Leon, the young farmer, though. In college, I took up a paramedical course in the city and we had World Lit but we only read mimeographed copies of Shakespeare sonnets. I still remember the term iambic pentamer but don't ask me to explain what that means since it was almost 30 years ago. Since then, Shakespeare works seem to be too classy for me to read. I thought that I would never find myself reading this book or any of his plays for that matter.

So this is how a Shakespeare's play looks like? I say it's awesome.

Midsummer Night's Dream is composed of 4 stories interwoven into the play: (1) The story of the Duke of Athens, Theseus and his fiancée, the Queen of the Amazons, Hipolita; (2) The story of the entangled lovers - two young men Lysander and Demetrius in love with Hermia who is only in love with Lysander. She has a friend, Helena who is in love with Demetrius; (3) The story of the artisan men who are to present a long short play about young Pyramus and his lover Thisbe to Theseus and Hipolita; and (4) The story of the fairies Oberon and Titania and the series of blunders committed by Puck (Robin Goodfellow) in using the "love-in-idleness," i.e., the juice of the flower Pansy that is put in one's eyelid while he or she is asleep and will make one go crazy in love with the first person one sees upon waking up.

It is crazy funny how Puck commits mistakes and the rendezvous of the characters. It's good that my edition of the book has both the Shakespeare original text and its modern version. The Introduction suggests that I should read both for me to appreciate Shakespeare's poetic expressions. So, I did and found it wonderful. I still prefer the original texts though although of course, it is harder to understand.

And the theme? Obviously, it's all about love. Of course, I know that Romeo and Juliet is about two young lovers who committed suicide. I just did not know, or maybe did not have time to know, that there are many other lovers in WS plays.

My friend, who obviously studied in a better high school, says that she played a part in the dramatization of this play when she was in 4th year high. Judging from her avatar, I would think that she should have played the lead roles of Hermia or Titania for she looks pretty and, based on her reviews and comments here in Goodreads, definitely smart. Those roles are far more sophisticated compared to mine, playing the farmer Leon, but it is not too late for me to get acquainted with Shakespeare's characters, right?

Although I'd seen a student production of this play back in my college days, I'd never read it until now. This month, it was a common read in one of my Goodreads groups; so I decided to join in, and watched it again (this time on film) as well. (I didn't read it in the above edition, but in the 1918 Yale Shakespeare set edition.)

Quite a few of my Goodreads friends have rated this play, mostly at four or five stars. My three-star rating (which is rounded up from two 1/2!) marks me as a bit of a heretic, or at least nonconformist. I'll readily admit that it has its pluses. As several reviews point out, it's funny (in places), especially if you like screwball situational humor --but the verbal humor of the play-within-a-play is a hoot as well. The blank verse diction of the play is grandiloquent and impressive (and has a few often quoted lines) as poetry. And I'll admit I'm always a sucker for a happy ending (okay, that's not a spoiler; given that it's one of the author's comedies, would you expect it to be tragic?) But it has, IMO, it's artistic weaknesses as well; and some of its attitudes haven't worn well with time. I wouldn't rank it as highly as some Shakespeare plays I've read/watched.

Naturally, I sympathize with Hermia and Lysander, who seem to genuinely love each other, and I rooted for them to be together. To his credit, Shakespeare clearly doesn't side with Egeus' and Theseus' ultra-patriarchial defense of arranged marriage and absolute paternal authority. Egeus, who wants to hand his own daughter to a suitor of his choosing in complete disregard for her feelings, and is seriously willing to actually have her killed for defying him, comes across to me as out-and-out evil pond scum. For me, though, that's a dysfunctional family situation that's hard to see as the stuff of comedy. Demetrius doesn't show up as much better; he's physically and selfishly infatuated with Hermia, to the point where he wants to essentially rape her for his own gratification regardless of what she wants, an attitude as far from love as it's possible to get. And he's thrown over an engagement (which the Elizabethans regarded as just as binding as marriage) to Helena, whom he obviously doesn't love either, to pursue this infatuation; and he treats her like dirt. It's hard (no, make that impossible) to imagine what Helena can see in him, and why she'd actually want him. Her absolute groveling before him, with lines like, "I am your spaniel... The more you beat me, I will fawn on you," etc., etc., for any male viewer who admires and respects women, can't help but come across as wince-worthy (or vomit-worthy). The fairy king and queen, Oberon and Titiana, have their own battle of the sexes going on, over a changeling human boy that Oberon selfishly wants to take for his own, despite Titiana's rather touching desire to raise him out of love and respect for his dead mother. Shakespeare's handling of some of these plot elements doesn't exactly suggest a real proto-feminist statement.

The motivation for some of the characters' key decisions at turning points of the plot are incomprehensible and implausible. Helena has nothing to gain by betraying her close friend's confidence to Demetrius, and much to lose (besides unaccountably throwing away a cherished friendship, she's acting to keep Hermia in the sights of a man she herself wants; is she wearing a sign saying "STUPID"?). And it's never explained why Titiana's infatuation with Bottom in his donkey-eared guise is supposed to make her suddenly willing to give in to Oberon's wish about the changeling, when nothing in her feelings about that situation have had any reason to alter, and falling for someone else would seemingly make her LESS considerate of Oberon, rather than the reverse. We might add that most husbands who want revenge on their wives probably wouldn't think of getting it by trying to make her fall in love with somebody/something else, at least if they valued her fidelity at all (though some aspects of fairy folklore suggest that fairies weren't thought of as being naturally monogamous, the way that humans are in their created nature).

A central premise of the play, the idea that love can be magically alienated from its object and attached to someone else, sends a rather reductionist message about what love is, and the role of the mind and free will of humans in those kinds of feelings and choices. To be sure, we don't take this message seriously, because we don't believe fairies and magic exist; to us, they're just literary conceits. But to Shakespeare and his audience, these things actually DID exist (and love philtres were taken as seriously as a heart attack in the folk magic of that day --though most of them were actually just herbal aphrodisiacs), and we have techniques of brainwashing and mind control today that their believers credit with as much reductionist power. At a deeper level than the superficially amusing, one might find it problematical to see things like love and friendship made playthings for fairy amusement, and "esteem" it less of a "sport" than Puck does. That raises fair questions about the ending, too. How valid is Helena's HEA if Demetrius' newly-regained "love" for her is the product of ensorcellment, even if neither of them knows that? (And how "happy" is any lady going to be who's sentenced to life with Demetrius?) While we're on the subject of the ending, if Theseus couldn't override the laws of Athens on paternal authority at the beginning of the play, how come he can near its end?

While Bottom and his fellow artisan actors (who obviously aren't well-educated, as few manual laborers were in the 16th century) are highly comical at times, one can detect a certain stereotyping and disparaging of those who aren't of the upper class in some lines. There seems to be an intent to portray them as being as moronic and naturally inferior to their social "betters" as possible; and that's another aspect of the play that comes across as irritating if you dig below the surface level.

Some readers/viewers might find the Elizabethan English here (and in other plays of the period) to be a deal-breaking stumblingblock. For me it wasn't. In viewing the play, I think most intelligent people could basically follow the action and get the gist of the dialogue without a problem. Making sense of the written text actually isn't too hard in most places (especially if you've previously seen the play performed). The Yale Shakespeare has very short explanatory footnotes, and longer endnotes, explaining the meanings of archaic words and phrases, with an index of words glossed; but I usually didn't have to refer to this. (When I did, it was generally helpful.) This edition also has short appendices on the sources of Shakespeare's ideas for the play, on the theatrical history of the play (to 1918), and on the text of it, and a few suggestions, now a bit dated, for collateral reading. I didn't read over any of these in much detail, but I'll probably refer to some of the material for discussion in the group during the rest of the month.

Review of 2023
This time rereading A Midsummer Night's Dream (AMSND), I read with GR Catching Up on the Classics. Those of us who have been reading and discussion this month have been a mix of those who have read AMSND before and those who are reading it for the first time/first since forever ago. In an effort to keep up, I have done a bit of a study.

The study:
I went into the read knowing that I would read the play from my trusty Bevington and from Shakespeare After All written by my current Shakespeare guru Marjorie Garber.

Another group member told us of Shakespeare's use of comedy, citing/paraphrasing some of Four Great Comedies: The Taming of the Shrew / A Midsummer Night's Dream / Twelfth Night / The Tempest, published by Signet. I remember this book from long ago on my bookshelf :-) This information is similar to what Bevington and Garber say, so this is a good place to start for a first read of the comedies.

Another group member provided information from the British Library website which provides a good check for me to know if I have adequately read and understood what I have read in the play and about the play--I am not interested in understanding all the information but in the parts that apply to my reading practice. https://www.bl.uk/treasures/shakespea...

Another group member suggested a performance enacted at Rice University. Gotta go Texan everytime, so I watched. It is a good outdoor production where the outdoor sounds were edited out almost always. So very watchable and standard production with some better aspects. Puck was a good puck, being amoral troublemaker. The mechanics were innocents, not idiots as they are sometimes played as. Worth watching.

Thanks to my reading friends at Catching Up, I have enjoyed this reread

De los romances más disparatados que he leído. Una obra plagada de enredos y líos amorosos.

Tras leer cuatro de los escritos más populares de Shakespeare, le llegó el turno a una de sus comedias con más renombre, escrita sobre 1595: “Sueño de una noche de verano”. Una de las influencias del dramaturgo inglés para escribirla fue sin duda, Ovidio y los mitos que brindó en su archiconocida “Metamorfosis” y de las leyendas locales de midsommar.

Dividida en cinco actos, en esta comedia, participan varios personajes que forman parte de un mismo escenario: por un lado tendremos un casamiento entre Teseo e Hipólita, conoceremos a dos parejas de atenienses y un grupo de actores. La historia transcurre en el bosque en su mayor parte, donde también habitan las hadas durante el solsticio de verano, en la noche de San Juan.

Los temas que trata son el amor, el desamor, las relaciones, los celos, mezclado con tintes mitológicos, seres apasionados a los que les embarga una belleza compleja que nos muestra los entresijos de la humanidad. El ambiente que crea Shakespeare es mágico y envolvente, me ha encantado el toque fantástico que aporta en esta obra que la hace tan diferente al resto. Indudable es su calidad literaria, siempre dotada de un lenguaje lírico, ingenioso y pulcro.

En conclusión, acostumbrada a leer teatro con un carácter mayoritariamente dramático y trágico, me ha sorprendido la armonía y felicidad que domina en la obra. A pesar de que en un principio puede parecer imposible lograr que todos los elementos presentados fluyan y armonicen con naturalidad, debo decir que Shakespeare lo consigue brindándonos una pieza maravillosa. Os la recomiendo, sobre todo si podéis disfrutarla en verano.

I love this play so much! This was a reread for me, but I was very happy to study it. It’s such a funny, playful and hilarious. I bet Shakespeare would have made a brilliant comedian. But at the same time, it’s actually so beautifully written that I was in admiration of his skill. With speech alone he combines jokes, wits and beautiful rhythm and rhyme. He’s literally writer goals, to be honest. I love how the final scene echoes Romeo and Juliet and its plot. The final scene is a play within a play, but it’s impossible to tell if Romeo and Juliet was written before or after this one. Did Shakespeare see the end scene was so well received he created an entire separate play based on the mini play? Or did he kind of promote his previous play with this one? Who knows! The epilogue was ironic because a character pretty much just mentioned the uselessness of epilogues, but it’s such a famous and classic epilogue that I’m glad it’s there. Even if solely in jest.

l'amore non guarda con gli occhi, ma con gli affetti,
e perciò l'alato Cupido viene dipinto bendato;
l'amore non ha il gusto del distinguere:
alato e cieco, è tutta foga senza giudizio;
perciò si dice che l'amore è un fanciullo:
perché nelle scelte sbaglia quasi sempre.

Perfino quando la scelta è concorde,
la guerra, la morte, la malattia assediano l'amore,
lo rendono momentaneo come un suono,
furtivo come un'ombra, fuggevole come un sogno,
breve come un lampo che in una notte nera
sveli, ad un tratto, cielo e terra,
ma, prima che si possa dire «Guarda!»,
le mascelle del buio l'hanno divorato.
Così in un istante svanisce ogni cosa che brilla.

Gli innamorati sono come i pazzi:
hanno sempre il cervello in gran bollore,
ed una fantasia così feconda
da riuscire a concepir più cose
di quante la ragione loro, a freddo,
si mostra poi disposta ad accettare.
Pazzo, amante, poeta: tutti e tre
sono composti sol di fantasia.
Il primo vede sempre più demoni
di quanti ne contenga il vasto inferno;
l’innamorato, tutta frenesia,
sa ravvisar perfino in una etiope
la venustà d’un’ Elena di Troia;
il poeta, volgendo gli occhi intorno,
come rapito in un dolce delirio,
può contemplare la terra del cielo
e il cielo della terra, e la sua penna,
così come l’estrosa sua inventiva
sa dare corpo a ciò che non conosce,
lo ferma, conferendo a un vuoto nulla
una concreta dimora ed un nome.
L’estroso immaginare ha tali trucchi
che se soltanto vagheggia una gioia,
se ne crea pure l’oggetto e l’origine.
E così se talvolta nella notte
sente d’aver paura, facilmente
può scambiare un cespuglio per un orso

Πόσο το απήλαυσα!!! Γέλασα τόσο με τα μπερδέματα και τα ευτράπελα του έργου.
Αγαπημένη σκηνή, αυτή τον τεσσάρων ερωτευμένων, και η απεγνωσμένη Ερμια.

Personajes encantadores para una bella historia de magia y enredos.

Video reseña completa en:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CjkyK50sdPr/

This is my favourite play by Shakespeare!

I saw it represented more than once, but it was my first time reading it, and I enjoyed it just as much.
It's so light compared to Shakespeare's tragedies, you could even call it fluffy, because that's what it is. It's funny, light-hearted, and I had such a nice time!

It's definitely a play I see myself rereading in the future:)

3,5