A Midsummer Night’s Dream is William Shakespeare’s fourth comedy and is ranked amongst his best and most complex comedies. The metadramatic features and the centrality of labouring class characters makes this comedy different from his others. It was written in 1596.
The Play
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a romantic comedy, is a dramatic text that draws attention to the very fine balance between tragedy and comedy, order and chaos, reality and illusion, romance and violence and tyranny and rebellion. The action of the play takes place over two days and four interwoven plots: the wedding of Hippolyta, the Amazonian queen and Theseus, Duke of Athens; the discord in the Athenian forest due to Titania and Oberon, the Fairy Queen and King respectively; the inconstant love of young Athenians Hermia, Helena, Demetrius and Lysander; and the practice and performance of the play-within-the-play by Quice and company.
The book comes along with
• A comprehensive introduction to the play
• Fully annotated and complete text
• Act-wise plot-summary
• Critical Essays