A Midsummer Night's Dream cover

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Rating 4.4
Word count
40K words
Chapters
19
ISBN
9787532771943

Tags

Summary

A Midsummer Night's Dream is the most mature comedy of Shakespeare's youth and one of his most famous comedies, telling a love story in which lovers are finally united.

Editor's review

A Midsummer Night's Dream is the pinnacle of Shakespeare's early comedies, and for four hundred years has continued to radiate a unique charm through its exquisite dramatic structure, poetic language, and boundless imagination. The work is not only a light, witty comedy but also a profound parable exploring the relationship between love, dreams, and reality. This edition from Shanghai Translation Publishing House offers a precise, fluent translation that preserves the rhythm and linguistic beauty of Shakespeare's original as fully as possible, providing Chinese readers with an excellent reading experience. From a professional perspective, the play's multi-stranded narrative is remarkably ingenious—the love entanglements of young Athenian nobles, the quarrel and reconciliation of the fairy king and queen, and the clumsy yet sincere rehearsal of the craftsmen—three threads interwoven in the midsummer-night forest and finally converging at the Duke's wedding in a harmonious, consummate ending, demonstrating Shakespeare's superb dramatic architecture. The play's mockery of the irrational nature of love ("Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind") and its celebration of imagination and artistic creativity still resonate strongly today. This edition is also particularly well suited to reading with an eye to staged performance, and it is especially suitable for readers encountering Shakespeare for the first time; its brisk storytelling pace and fairy-tale atmosphere lower the threshold for reading a classic.

Who it's for

A good fit for

  • Readers new to Shakespeare who hope to enter the classic world in an accessible way
  • Researchers and enthusiasts interested in Renaissance literature and dramatic art
  • Readers who enjoy love-themed literary works full of poetry and imagination
  • Drama students or theater lovers who wish to study classic comic structure and dialogue

Not a good fit for

  • Readers who seek rigorous logic and realistic narrative style
  • Serious scholars who wish to study Shakespeare's tragedies or histories in depth

Reading tips

  1. Try reading some lines aloud while reading, especially the fairies' songs, to feel the beauty of their rhythm.
  2. It may help to first map out the character relationships across the four storylines, which aids understanding of the plot's ingenious interweaving.
  3. Consider the social and cultural context of the Elizabethan period to reflect on the play's metaphors about love, marriage, and class.

About the publisher

Shanghai Translation Publishing House China · Founded in 1978

Shanghai Translation Publishing House is a Chinese publisher oriented mainly toward translation and publishing. Its publications cover foreign literature, world classics and classic works, as well as social culture, folk literature and classical poetry. The database contains 2,618 titles, including Never Let Me Go, Les Misérables (2 volumes), Don Quixote (illustrated collector's edition), The Complete Comedies of Molière (4 volumes), The Complete Novels of Kafka (3 volumes), The Collected Works of Dostoevsky (9-volume set), Reason and Persons, and Oedipus Rex (Translation Classics). Its author resources include foreign writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Victor Hugo, Cervantes and Molière, as well as translators such as Zheng Kelu, Sun Jiameng, Li Jianwu and Zhang Kun. The publisher has brands such as "Translation Classics Selections" and "Translation Documentary," and emphasizes translated works in foreign literature and the humanities and social sciences, while also publishing bilingual dictionaries and foreign-language educational books. Public information is limited; the above is based on the book information in the database.

Contents

  1. 版权信息
  2. 前言
  3. 剧中人物
  4. 第一幕
  5. 第一景 雅典宫中
  6. 第二景 昆斯家中
  7. 第二幕
  8. 第一景 雅典附近的森林
  9. 第二景 森林
  10. 第三幕
  11. 第一景 森林中
  12. 第二景 森林中
  13. 第四幕
  14. 第一景 森林中
  15. 第二景 雅典 昆斯家中
  16. 第五幕
  17. 第一景 雅典 宫中
  18. 第二景 同前
  19. 考证

FAQ

What is the core theme of A Midsummer Night's Dream?
The play's core theme is the fickleness and irrational nature of love, while it also explores the blurred boundaries between dream and reality, fantasy and reason. Through the intervention of fairy magic, Shakespeare dramatizes the blindness, delusion, and ultimate reconciliation in love.
What are the features of this translated edition?
The Shanghai Translation Publishing House edition is generally based on Zhu Shenghao's translation, with graceful, fluent language; the verse passages strive to preserve rhythm, while the prose is lively and natural, achieving a good balance between scholarly accuracy and literary readability, and is recognized as one of the authoritative translations in China.
Why is this comedy called Shakespeare's "most poetic" comedy?
Because it makes extensive use of lyrical language, ballads, songs, and fairy spells, and its forest scenes are filled with fantastical color, creating a dreamlike atmosphere throughout. Soliloquies on love and dreams, such as "Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind," have become celebrated lines, reflecting the highest achievement of linguistic art.

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About the author

William Shakespeare Author · English · 1564–1616

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was an English playwright, poet, and actor of the Renaissance. Born in Stratford, he is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language. His representative works include Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Antony and Cleopatra, and his sonnets. His plays span tragedy, comedy, and history, with vividly drawn characters and a poetic, rhetorically charged style that probes human nature and power with particular depth. Translated into many languages and performed worldwide, his works have had a profound influence. This site holds 187 of his works, including English-Chinese bilingual editions for comparative reading.

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