Shakespeare On The Double A Midsummer Night S Dream

A Midsummer Night S Dream Is Acclaimed As The Best Of The Early Comedies Of Shakespeare. It Brings Together The Elements Of Romance, Supernatural Forces And Earthy Common Sense In An Unprecedented Blend Of Magical Harmony. The Present Study Aims At Making The Text More Accessible To The Serious Student Of Shakespeare. Besides Providing The Socio-Political Milieu Of Shakespeare S Time, It Gives A Scene-Wise Critical Summary Of The Text. It Contains Numerous Citations From The Text, Thus Providing Ample Opportunity For The Reader To Familiarise Himself With The Text. The Analyses Of Different Elements Of Drama Are Accompanied With The Views Of Renowned Critics. Classical Theories Of Comedy As Well As Elizabethan Comments Have Been Lucidly And Briefly Explained. A Select Bibliography And Index Have Been Provided At The End. The Book Is Highly Readable, Self-Contained And Comprehensive. It Will Undoubtedly Prove An Invaluable Reference Book For Both Students And Teachers Of English Literature.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is perhaps the best-loved of Shakespeare's plays, and certainly the one that children are likely to encounter first; its mixture of aristocrats, workers, and fairies meeting in a wood outside Athens has a magic of its own. Simple and engaging on the surface, it isnonetheless a highly original and sophisticated work, remarkable for both its literary and its theatrical mastery. The fact that it is one of the very few of Shakespeare's plays not to draw on a narrative source suggests the degree to which it reflects his deepest imaginative concerns.In his Introduction, defining the play in both the literary and theatrical traditions to which it belongs, Peter Holland pays particular attention to dreams and dreamers, tracing the materials out of which Shakespeare constructs his world of night and shadows in the strange but enchanting amalgam hemakes of them. Both here and in the detailed commentary he draws freely upon the play's extensive performance history to illustrate the wide range of interpretations of which it is capable.

Machine generated contents note: Introduction; 1. 'Improbable fictions: Shakespeare's plays without the plays; 2. Versatility and verisimilitude on sixteenth-century stages; 3. Doubling in The Winter's Tale; 4. Dramaturgical directives and Shakespeare's cast size; 5. Doubling in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet; 6. Where the boys aren't; 7. Doubling in Twelfth Night and Othello; Epilogue: Ragozine and Shakespearean substitution; Appendix; Bibliography; Index.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy play by William Shakespeare. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and Hippolyta. These include the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of six amateur actors, who are controlled and manipulated by the fairies who inhabit the forest in which most of the play is set.