Four lovers flee into a forest ruled by quarrelling fairies, where a love flower and one wrong guess turn everyone's feelings upside down.
A fast, funny, endlessly quotable comedy whose plot is a clockwork of mistaken love. The verse can be dense on the page, but the workmen's play-within-a-play is a delight. Four and a half out of five, in my view.
Every guide comes as a video and a full written article. Pick the one you need: the review is spoiler-free, the ending explained is not.
A full-spoiler A Midsummer Night's Dream summary as a love ledger: four snapshots of who loves whom, three love-flower charms, two cures, and the lover who is never fixed. Read from the Project Gutenberg text.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a play by William Shakespeare in five acts: four young lovers, a feuding fairy king and queen, and six workmen rehearsing a play for a duke’s wedding. We read the text of Project Gutenberg ebook 1514, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so every line on this page comes from a script you can read in an evening.
Below you’ll find a summary built as a love ledger: four snapshots of who loves whom, and the count of love-flower charms against cures. The page has full spoilers, since the whole play, ending included, is covered.
A fast, funny, endlessly quotable comedy whose plot is a clockwork of mistaken love. The verse can be dense on the page, but the workmen's play-within-a-play is a delight. Four and a half out of five, in my view. Read it if: you want a short shakespeare play that is actually funny; you like mistaken-identity and love-triangle plots; you are studying it for class and need the plot and the ending; you enjoy fairy-tale settings with a sharp edge. Skip it if: you dislike reading verse on the page; you want a serious, realistic love story; you have already read it and only need a plot refresher.
A full-spoiler A Midsummer Night's Dream summary as a love ledger: four snapshots of who loves whom, three love-flower charms, two cures, and the lover who is never fixed. Read from the Project Gutenberg text. A Midsummer Night's Dream Summary: The Love Ledger →
A Shakespeare comedy in five acts. Hermia flees Athens with Lysander to escape a forced marriage to Demetrius. In the forest, the fairy king Oberon has Puck use a love flower to fix things, but a mistake makes both men chase Helena, while the fairy queen Titania falls for Bottom, who has an ass's head.
Helena. Oberon charms Demetrius's eyes in Act Three, and the text shows no cure for it, while Lysander and Titania are both released. In the last scenes Demetrius says his love for Hermia has melted and he is true to Helena.
The workmen perform The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe for the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta in Act Five. Bottom plays Pyramus, Flute plays Thisbe, Snout is Wall, and Snug is the lion.
