William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night's Dream By William Shakespeare Annotated Version

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy written by William Shakespeare in 1595/96. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of Theseus, the Duke of Athens, to Hippolyta (the former queen of the Amazons). These include the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of six amateur actors (the mechanicals) who are controlled and manipulated by the fairies who inhabit the forest in which most of the play is set. The play is one of Shakespeare's most popular works for the stage and is widely performed across the world. The version published in the First Folio of 1623 was taken from a second quarto edition, with some reference to a promptbook. One of the "great" or "middle" comedies, A Midsummer Night's Dream, with its multilayered examination of love and its vagaries, has long been one of the most popular of Shakespeare's plays. Four Athenians run away to the forest only to have Puck the fairy make both of the boys fall in love with the same girl. The four run through the forest pursuing each other while Puck helps his master play a trick on the fairy queen. In the end, Puck reverses the magic, and the two couples reconcile and marry.