Midsummer Night's Dream

by Michael Kerrigan, Tony Buzan, William Shakespeare

Book Overview

Volumes in this recently developed series for middle school and high school students analyze major literary works in terms that help students understand them for higher grades on tests and written... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0764108271
• ISBN13: 9780764108273
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Barron's Educational Series
• Length: 83 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.0" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Kid Friendly Shakespeare

I am currently reading this version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream with my fifth grade class. They are able to understand the story as we (as a class) tackle the more difficult Shakespearian verse. They appreciate the writing of Shakespeare more because his style is not interfering with their understanding of the story. It has been a great experience for all!!!

Hermia is the best character

In my school, we read he book a midsummernight's dream and now we are doing the play at school. We read the original not this, but I still love it. My favorite character is Hermia because she is pretty and spunky and I am going to play her! This play rockz! Go Sherwood Middle School.

Great Translation that Makes Shakespeare More Accessable

I purchased many titles in the "Shakespeare Made Easy" series. It has a modern English translation side by side with the original text. It helped tremendously when it came to school assignments.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream is certainly one of the most popular Shakespearean plays. Few other dramas display such a combination of theatrical appeal: comedy and dance, music and fairies, rustics and the moonlit woods. This unit examines the enchanting play and its theme of love and love's folly. A Midsummer Night's Dream contains some wonderfully lyrical expressions of lighter Shakespearean themes, most notably those of love, dreams, and the stuff of both, the creative imagination itself.I believe that Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer Night's Dream as a light entertainment to accompany a marriage celebration.

Fun and Frivolous

On the first read, I thought this was really silly stuff, but on the second read I thought it had some of Shakespheare's best romantic poetry in it. This story contains yet another authoritarian father of Shakespheare's creation, Egeus, telling his daughter Hermia who she will marry (Demetrius) and not marry (Lysander). There is also her sister Helena who is in love with Demetrius, but Demetrius does not love her. Enter the fairies, mainly Oberon and his servant Puck who muck things up further by enchanting Lysander and Demetrius into falling in love with Helena instead of their previous darling girl Hermia. Tension ensues as Helena thinks that she is being mocked and Hermia thinks that Helena has stolen away her men. Puck and the fairies eventually right things by enchanting Demetrius to match up with Hermia and Lysander with Helena. There is a subplot with working class rustics who try to put on a play of Pyramus and Thisbe, two lovers that die tragically. (Imagine construction workers putting on a romantic play, for modern day comparison.) The leader Snug and his company of Bottom, Quince, Flute, Snout, and Starveling prepare a play at night in the woods and the mischievous fairy Puck attaches a donkey's posterior to Bottom's head and makes the queen fairy Titania fall in love with him and his fine feature. Eventually, Puck reverses this predicament before the night is over.Bottom and company put on the play in the last act for the nobles of city who are Theseus, Duke of Athens, and his company of the soon to be married nobles Demetrius and Hermia and Lysander and Helena, among others. The play is so bad it's comical. The usual tragic romantic deaths in plays like Romeo and Juliet are parodied in this act. In fact, this play seems to be what Romeo and Juliet would have been if it were turned into a comedy. As with most Shakespheare's plays this is better seen than read. The love rectangle is confusing at first given the similar names of Helena and Hermia and the switching match-ups. Not much mentally to chew on here, other than the observation that one can often love someone, but they don't love you back and it's frustrating.