A Midsummer Night’s Dream

William Shakespeare, 1600

A-level set text Edexcel A-level

Lovers fleeing Athenian authority enter a woodland world where desire is unusually easy to disturb.

Read the book Contents

Length: 9 scenes
Reading time: About 1 hr 11 min
Words: 17,009

About the book

A wedding is approaching in Athens, but Hermia's father wants a marriage she refuses. The conflict between obedience and desire sends the comedy towards the woods, where human arrangements meet the quarrels and interventions of a fairy court.

Shakespeare sets lovers beside amateur actors, allowing declarations of passion and theatrical ambition to become equally comic. The play moves between public ceremony and nocturnal confusion, with verse, argument and practical stage business making love look persuasive, changeable and sometimes thoroughly absurd.

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This edition

Text from Standard Ebooks, who proofread and typeset it and dedicate their edition to the public domain. William Shakespeare died more than 70 years ago, so the work is out of copyright in the UK. Includes the original dramatis personae.