A Midsummer Night's Dream

This edition of A Midsummer Night's Dream takes the comedy seriously. Like my previous Hackett editions, it gives full weight to Shakespeare's dramatic setting, which other editors (and scholars) almost always ignore or at least fail adequately to consider. Ancient Athens is the core, not the mere background, of Midsummer Night's Dream. As we shall see, Shakespeare focuses, in particular, on the love of the beautiful and the triumph of learning and art, along with the rise of democracy, which, as Pericles famously claims, are the hallmarks of Athens. 'We are lovers of the beautiful with thrift, and lovers of wisdom without softness' (Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 2.40.1).

Failure to consider classical Athens as central to Midsummer Night's Dream will cause a reader to miss not only the play's remarkable substance, but much of its sparkling comedy as well. Far from impeding the play's humour, focusing on Athens helps to bring out multi-layers of comedy that Shakespeare put there.