Resumen
Resumen de A Midsummer Night's Dream
Para quién es
For readers who love romantic comedy and magic, anyone seeking a first way into Shakespeare, and students meeting the play in class.
De qué trata este libro
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy by William Shakespeare, written in the middle of the 1590s and first printed in 1600. It was probably made for the stage of the London theatres, and some scholars think it may have been written for a wedding. Three groups of people meet in one night. There are young lovers from Athens, a band of working men who want to put on a play, and the fairies who rule a nearby wood.
The play gives you a fast plot, plenty of jokes and some of the most musical verse Shakespeare wrote. It also shows how love can make people foolish, jealous and generous within the same hour. You do not need to know the story beforehand. It starts with a hard law, a stubborn father and two men who want the same young woman. Let us begin in Athens, where the trouble starts.
En este resumen
- 1A harsh law sends lovers to the woodsFree
- 2Six workmen plan a play
- 3The fairy king and queen are at war
- 4Wrong flower, wrong love, wild night
- 5Love is blind and reason has limits
- 6Three worlds, two kinds of speech
Idea clave 1 de 6
A harsh law sends lovers to the woods
The play opens in Athens, where Duke Theseus is preparing his wedding to Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons. The wedding is four days away, and Theseus wants the city to be happy. Into this mood comes Egeus, an angry father. He has promised his daughter Hermia to a young man named Demetrius, but she loves another man, Lysander.
Egeus asks the Duke to enforce Athenian law. Under that law a daughter must obey her father. If she refuses, she may be put to death or sent to live as a nun. Theseus says the law must be kept and urges Hermia to obey her father. He gives Hermia until his own wedding day to change her mind.
Hermia and Lysander decide not to wait. They agree to meet at night in the wood outside the city and then run to the house of Lysander's aunt, where Athenian law cannot reach them. Lysander says that true lovers have always met with trouble, and the two try to comfort each other with that thought. Hermia tells her friend Helena about the plan.
Helena is the one who makes the plot tangle. She is deeply in love with Demetrius, who once courted her and now ignores her. She thinks that if she tells him about the escape, he will follow Hermia into the wood, and she can follow him. So she does, and by the end of the scene four young people are heading into the same dark place, all wanting the wrong thing.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Who’s who
- Hermia
- Hermia is a young Athenian who loves Lysander but faces her father's demand that she marry Demetrius.
- Lysander
- Lysander is Hermia's beloved, a young Athenian who plans to escape with her rather than submit to her father.
- Helena
- Helena is Hermia's friend and loves Demetrius, who has turned his attention away from her toward Hermia.
- Demetrius
- Demetrius is Hermia's father's preferred suitor, though he previously courted Helena and now seeks to marry Hermia.
- Oberon
- Oberon is the fairy king, quarreling with his queen, Titania, over a child he wants as his page.
- Titania
- Titania is the fairy queen and Oberon's wife, determined to keep the child entrusted to her care.
- Puck
- Puck is Oberon's mischievous fairy servant, carrying out his master's commands while delighting in tricks on human beings.
- Nick Bottom
- Nick Bottom is a confident weaver and amateur actor who joins fellow tradesmen in preparing a play.
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 18,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 1 h 10 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary; paperback, hardcover and large print at cost
- LanguagesEnglish and 10 other languages
Questions about A Midsummer Night's Dream
What is A Midsummer Night's Dream about?
It is a comedy about two pairs of young lovers, a group of amateur actors and the fairies of an enchanted wood. Magic and mistakes make love change direction in one night, while the humans in the wood get more and more confused.
Who is Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream?
Puck, also called Robin Goodfellow, is Oberon's quick, mischievous fairy servant. He carries out the king's orders, plays tricks on mortals and makes a serious mistake with the love flower that sets off most of the plot's confusion.
Is A Midsummer Night's Dream a true story?
No. It is an invented comedy, written around 1595 or 1596. Shakespeare drew on classical myth, English folklore and old stories such as Pyramus and Thisbe, and he set it in a loose, legendary Athens.
Is A Midsummer Night's Dream hard to read?
It is one of the easier Shakespeare plays to follow. The plot is clear and funny, and the musical verse is a pleasure to hear read aloud.
What is the main message of A Midsummer Night's Dream?
The play suggests that love is driven by feeling and imagination rather than reason, and that it often makes people foolish. It also asks how firmly we can trust our own sight, and shows that stories and dreams hold real meaning.