A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Name: A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Rating: 3.94 (591896 reviews)

by Shakespeare

First published 1600

Amazon

3.9(591,896)

As Theseus prepares to marry Hippolyta in Athens, four young lovers flee or pursue one another into a nearby wood. There they cross the quarrel between Oberon and Titania, rulers of the fairies, and become victims of a magical flower that redirects desire from one person to another.

A group of amateur actors rehearsing the story of Pyramus and Thisbe is drawn into the same enchantment, most memorably when Bottom is given an ass’s head. The comedy mixes Greek heroic figures with English folklore and theatrical parody, using supernatural confusion to expose how unstable love can appear before the characters return to Athens for marriages and performance.