book review on midsummer night's dream

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The Best Fiction Books » Classic English Literature

A midsummer night’s dream, by william shakespeare.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream  is one of our most recommended Shakespeare plays . “ It’s delicate, it’s charming, but also a deeply serious play because Shakespeare is concerned as much with the art of theatre, as with the work of the imaginative artist: whether the artist is a writer or an actor.”

Recommendations from our site

“ A Midsummer Night’s Dream has always been a great favourite of mine, ever since my school days. I was introduced to it at school when I was about 11 or 12. I’ve seen many productions of it. It’s the first play I edited, for the New Penguin Shakespeare, in 1967. I very much enjoyed writing about it then. It’s a play about imagination, about Shakespeare’s own heart, in many ways. The Mechanicals’ scenes, as they’re called, in which Shakespeare portrays amateur actors putting on the play of Pyramus and Thisbe, actually tell us an awful lot about Shakespeare’s attitude towards the theatre and the acting profession. They’re also wonderfully playable.It’s a play that appeals very much to young people. I’m speaking now from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust at Stratford-Upon-Avon and we have what’s called ‘Shakespeare Week,’ when we engage with over 10,000 primary schools. The Royal Shakespeare Company put on a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream which uses amateur actors, including schoolchildren.” Read more...

Stanley Wells recommends the best of Shakespeare’s Plays

Stanley Wells , Literary Scholar

“A play of intoxicating beauty and magic… it’s a play which I loved as a child.” Read more...

René Weis on The Best Plays of Shakespeare

René Weis , Biographer

Other books by William Shakespeare

Titus andronicus (arden shakespeare) by jonathan bate & william shakespeare, all the sonnets of shakespeare by paul edmonson, stanley wells & william shakespeare, the art of shakespeare's sonnets by helen vendler & william shakespeare, shakespeare's sonnets by katherine duncan-jones & william shakespeare, illustrated stories from shakespeare by anna claybourne, rosie dickins & william shakespeare, hamlet by william shakespeare, our most recommended books, great expectations by charles dickens, wuthering heights by emily brontë, jane eyre by charlotte brontë, frankenstein (book) by mary shelley, antony and cleopatra by william shakespeare, middlemarch by george eliot.

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A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

by William Shakespeare & illustrated by Kate Brown ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2008

Of late many classic titles—including the Bible—have been turned into manga, in a 21st-century version of the venerable Classics Illustrated comics. This take on the Bard boils his play down to approximately 20 words per page, drastically abridging the text, though keeping intact the original language and meter. A fully colored dramatis personae reduces the characters to sound bites and shines in comparison to the flat, gray-toned images that murkily tell the story itself. As drawn by Brown, the characters are decidedly more Western-looking in their styling than is typical to most manga, and the adaptor’s choice of setting is an anachronistic mishmash of quasi-antique and modern, a choice that will leave sophisticated readers knowledgeable with the text slightly puzzled. The Tempest (ISBN: 978-0-8109-9476-8), drawn by Paul Duffield, follows an identical template. These attempts to convert Shakespeare into visual language fall flat, although the slick manga styling alone may attract some new readers to these works. (plot summary, author’s biography) (Graphic fiction. 13 & up)

Pub Date: June 1, 2008

ISBN: 978-0-8109-9475-1

Page Count: 208

Publisher: Amulet/Abrams

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2008

GENERAL GRAPHIC NOVELS & COMICS | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION

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More by William Shakespeare

BOOK REVIEW

by William Shakespeare ; adapted by Crystal S. Chan & Michael Barltrop ; illustrated by Julien Choy

by William Shakespeare ; adapted by Crystal Chan ; illustrated by Julien Choy

by William Shakespeare ; adapted by Georghia Ellinas ; illustrated by Jane Ray

IF ONLY I HAD TOLD HER

by Laura Nowlin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2024

A heavy read about the harsh realities of tragedy and their effects on those left behind.

In this companion novel to 2013’s If He Had Been With Me , three characters tell their sides of the story.

Finn’s narrative starts three days before his death. He explores the progress of his unrequited love for best friend Autumn up until the day he finally expresses his feelings. Finn’s story ends with his tragic death, which leaves his close friends devastated, unmoored, and uncertain how to go on. Jack’s section follows, offering a heartbreaking look at what it’s like to live with grief. Jack works to overcome the anger he feels toward Sylvie, the girlfriend Finn was breaking up with when he died, and Autumn, the girl he was preparing to build his life around (but whom Jack believed wasn’t good enough for Finn). But when Jack sees how Autumn’s grief matches his own, it changes their understanding of one another. Autumn’s chapters trace her life without Finn as readers follow her struggles with mental health and balancing love and loss. Those who have read the earlier book will better connect with and feel for these characters, particularly since they’ll have a more well-rounded impression of Finn. The pain and anger is well written, and the novel highlights the most troublesome aspects of young adulthood: overconfidence sprinkled with heavy insecurities, fear-fueled decisions, bad communication, and brash judgments. Characters are cued white.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024

ISBN: 9781728276229

Page Count: 416

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT ROMANCE

More by Laura Nowlin

by Laura Nowlin

INDIVISIBLE

by Daniel Aleman ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 4, 2021

An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.

A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.

Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.

Pub Date: May 4, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021

TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FICTION | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT FAMILY | TEENS & YOUNG ADULT SOCIAL THEMES

More by Daniel Aleman

by Daniel Aleman

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Book Review: A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer's Night Dream is one of Shakespeare's many plays that he wrote. Unlike many of his works, this one does not have a sad and tragic ending, and is a drama more than anything. The story is about four lovers Hermia, Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius. There is a whole love triangle where Hermia loves Lysander, but is forced to marry Demetrius, who Helena loves. For Hermia to escape getting married to someone she doesn't love, she and Lysander run off into a forest where they are outside the law. Already in the forest, there is drama going on between two faeries, Oberon and Titania. Titania is protecting an Indian boy that Oberon wants, so Oberon gets his faerie Puck to go receive a love potion, so that Titania will now be distracted by love and Oberon can snatch the Indian child. Back in the city however, there is a group of actors organizing a play. After one of them tries to take up every part in the play, they get it all organized and head off to the forest to practice. So already in the first act we got everybody running off to the forest to cause drama. This play shines at how good its humor is, and is jammed pack with drama. I would recommend anyone to read this fancy story.

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A Midsummer Night's Dream

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Reason and love keep little company together nowadays.

So says Bottom in "William Shakespeare's a Midsummer Night's Dream," and he could be describing the play he occupies. It is an enchanted folly suggesting that romance is a matter of chance, since love is blind; at the right moment we are likely to fall in love with the first person our eyes light upon. Much of the play's fun comes during a long night in the forest, where the mischiefmaker anoints the eyes of sleeping lovers with magic potions that cause them to adore the first person they see upon awakening.

This causes all sorts of confusions, not least when Titania, the Fairy Queen herself, falls in love with a weaver who has grown donkey's ears. The weaver is Bottom ( Kevin Kline ), and he and the mischievous Puck ( Stanley Tucci ) are the most important characters in the play, although it also involves dukes, kings, queens and high-born lovers. Bottom has a good heart and bumbles through, and Puck (also called Robin Goodfellow) spreads misunderstanding wherever he goes. The young lovers are pawns in a magic show: When they can't see the one they love, they love the one they see.

Michael Hoffman's new film of "William Shakespeare's a Midsummer Night's Dream" (who else's?) is updated to the 19th century, set in Italy and furnished with bicycles and operatic interludes. But it is founded on Shakespeare's language and is faithful, by and large, to the original play. Harold Bloom complains in his wise best seller, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, that the play's romantic capers have been twisted by modern adaptations into "the notion that sexual violence and bestiality are at the center of this humane and wise drama." He might approve of this version, which is gentle and lighthearted, and portrays Bottom not as a lustful animal but as a nice enough fellow who has had the misfortune to wake up with donkey's ears--"amiably innocent, and not very bawdy," as Bloom describes him.

Kevin Kline is, of course, the embodiment of amiability, as he bashfully parries the passionate advances of Titania ( Michelle Pfeiffer ). Her eyes have been anointed with magical ointment at the behest of her husband, Oberon ( Rupert Everett ), who hopes to steal away the young boy they both dote on. When she opens them to regard Bottom, she is besotted with love and inspired to some of Shakespeare's most lyrical poetry: I'll give thee fairies to attend on thee; And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep, And sing, while thou on pressed flowers dost sleep. Meanwhile, more magical potions, distributed carelessly by Puck, have hopelessly confused the relationships among four young people who were introduced at the beginning of the play. They are Helena ( Calista Flockhart ), Hermia ( Anna Friel ), Demetrius ( Christian Bale ) and Lysander ( Dominic West ). Now follow this closely: Hermia has been promised by her father to Demetrius, but she loves Lysander. Demetrius was Helena's lover, but now claims to prefer Hermia. Hermia is offered three cruel choices by the duke, Theseus ( David Strathairn ): marry according to her father's wishes, go into a convent or die. Desperate, she flees to a nearby wood with Lysander, her true love. Helena, who loves Demetrius, tips him off to follow them; maybe if he sees his intended in the arms of another man, he will return to Helena's arms.

The woods grow crowded. Also turning up at the same moonlit rendezvous are Bottom and his friends, workmen from the village who plan to rehearse a play to be performed at the wedding of Theseus and his intended, Queen Hippolyta ( Sophie Marceau ). And flickering about the glen are Oberon, Titania, Puck and assorted fairies. Only the most determined typecasting helps us tell them apart: As many times as I've been through this play in one form or another, I can't always distinguish the four young lovers, who seem interchangeable. They function mostly to be meddled with by Puck's potions.

Hoffman, whose wonderful " Restoration " re-created a time of fire and plague, here conducts with a playful touch. There are small gems of stagecraft for all of the actors, including Snout, the village tinker, who plays a wall in the performance for the duke, and makes a circle with his thumb and finger to represent a chink in it. It's wonderful to behold Pfeiffer's infatuation with the donkey-eared Bottom, who she winds in her arms as "doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle gently twist"; her love is so real, we almost believe it. Kline's Bottom tactfully humors her mad infatuation, good-natured and accepting. And Tucci's Puck suggests sometimes that he has a darker side, but it not so much malicious as incompetent.

"A Midsummer Night's Dream" is another entry in Shakespeare's recent renaissance on film. After " Much Ado About Nothing ," Ian McKellen's " Richard III ," Al Pacino's documentary "Looking for Richard," Laurence Fishburne as "Othello," Kenneth Branagh's "Hamlet," Helena Bonham Carter in " Twelfth Night ," Baz Luhrmann's modern street version of "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet," the " King Lear "-inspired " A Thousand Acres ," the remake of "Taming of the Shrew" as " 10 Things I Hate About You ," and the Bard's celebration in " Shakespeare in Love ," we can look ahead to the forthcoming "Hamlet" with Ethan Hawke , Branagh's "Love's Labor's Lost," Mekhi Phifer as Othello in the modern urban drama " O " and Anthony Hopkins in " Titus ," based on the rarely staged "Titus Andronicus" ("All Rome's a wilderness of tigers").

Why is Shakespeare so popular with filmmakers when he contains so few car chases and explosions? Because he is the measuring stick by which actors and directors test themselves. His insights into human nature are so true that he has, as Bloom argues in his book, actually created our modern idea of the human personality. Before Hamlet asked, "to be, or not to be?," dramatic characters just were. Ever since, they have known and questioned themselves. Even in a comedy like "Midsummer," there are quick flashes of brilliance that help us see ourselves. "What fools these mortals be," indeed.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film Credits

William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999)

Rated PG-13 For Sensuality and Nudity

115 minutes

Kevin Kline as Nick Bottom

Sophie Marceau as Hippolyta

Calista Flockhart as Helena

Anna Friel as Hermia

David Strathairn as Theseus

Michelle Pfeiffer as Titania

Rupert Everett as Oberon

Dominic West as Lysander

Christian Bale as Demetrius

Based On The Play by

• William Shakespeare

Written and Directed by

• Michael Hoffman

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By William Shakespeare Written between 1594 to 1596

General Note: In January 2009 I decided that I�d like to go back and read all the plays of William Shakespeare, perhaps one a month if that works out. I hadn�t read a Shakespeare play since 1959, 50 years ago! But I had read nearly all of them in college. I wanted to go back, start with something not too serious or challenging, and work my way through the whole corpus. Thus I began with The Two Gentlemen of Verona. At this time I have no idea how the project will go, nor if it will actually lead me through the entire corpus of Shakespeare�s plays. However, I will keep a separate page listing each play I�ve read with links to any comments I would make of that particular play. See: List of Shakespeare�s play�s I�ve read and commented on

COMMENTS ON A MIDSUMMER NIGHT�S DREAM

Nonetheless, while there are few surprises, and not many great insights into human emotions and feelings as we find in the histories and tragedies, they are still light-hearted and grand fun. A Midsummer Night�s Dream is no exception. Certainly not great, but fun and fluff, and even on a third or four read, a good time.