Midsummer Night's Dream - William Shakespeare Arts & Drama / Shakespeare

Search For Audio Books

Author, Title or Keyword

Browse by Category

Foreign Language Study

Recommended Audio Books

BBC Radio Shakespeare: Antony & Cleopatra

William Shakespeare
Frances Barber and David Harewood star in Shakespeare's towering tale of great love, political intrigue and tragedy.$17.25

» More Info

As You Like It

William Shakespeare

A quintessential Shakespearean comedy, complete with a loquacious clown.

$10.99

» More Info

BBC Radio Shakespeare: As You Like It

William Shakespeare
Helena Bonham Carter stars as Rosalind with David Morrissey as Orlando and Natasha Little as Celia in Shakespeare's festive comedy.$12.75

» More Info

BBC Radio Shakespeare: Romeo & Juliet

William Shakespeare
Douglas Henshall, Sophie Dahl and Susannah York star in Shakespeare's passionate story of doomed love. The full beauty and meaning of some of the most lyrical lines ever written can truly be heard.$20.75

» More Info

Midsummer Night's Dream

See Larger Image	Category :	Shakespeare

	Publisher :	Select Music & Video Distribution Ltd
	Author :	William Shakespeare
	Narrator :	Full Cast Production

	Length :	2 hours 20 minutes (Unabridged)

Download Price :		$12.25

Format :		Encoded Windows Media

© 2006 Select Music & Video Distribution Ltd

ADD TO BASKET

HEAR SAMPLE

A Midsummer Night's Dream must be one of the most enduringly popular of Shakespeare's plays, and it is not difficult to see why: the work blends several kinds of comedy with a powerful atmosphere of magic and mystery and a satisfying set of contrasts - between city and country, reason and imagination, love and infatuation.

The play dates from 1595-6, and therefore belongs to Shakespeare's early maturity as a dramatist. There is some disagreement about whether A Midsummer Night's Dream was specially written for an aristocratic wedding. No direct evidence for this speculation exists, although the festive and optimistic emphasis at the end - the fairies blessing the 'bride-bed' - would certainly be appropriate. One senses, too, a celebratory delight in the young writer's new-found richness of ideas and mastery of form, and it is interesting to see from what a wide range of sources Shakespeare drew in order to create what is nevertheless a highly original work.

The Sources
The anticipation and completion of Theseus' and Hippolyta's wedding, which frames the action, is taken from Chaucer's The Knight's Tale. Puck's origin, on the other hand, owes more to folklore than literature; the mechanicals' or 'clowns' (Bottom, Quince et al) are clearly caricatured Elizabethan working men, while the story of Pyramus and Thisbe came to Shakespeare through Golding's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses. No single source, however, can account for the miraculous transformation Shakespeare works upon these diverse materials.

Arts & Drama categories

All Biographical Classic Literature Dramatizations Foreign Language Content Music Related Poetry Shakespeare Miscellaneous

New Releases

Who Killed Hollywood?: And Put the Tarnish on Tinseltown

Peter Bart
Who and what will resurrect Hollywood? Peter Bart has the answers.$22.99

» More Info

Brad Lansky and the Anti-STARC (#4)

J.D. Venne
"The Anti-STARC" is the fourth episode in the Brad Lansky series, captured in hi-fi stereo.$5.25

» More Info

Danse Macabre: Stephen King reflects on the nature of Terror

Stephen King
Informal, engaging, tremendous fun, and tremendously informative, Danse Macabre is an essential tour with the master of horror as your guide.$24.99

» More Info

FATHER BROWN Mysteries. Episode 04 The Arrow of Heaven

G.K. Chesterton. Dramatized by M J Elliott
Father Brown comes to the aid of a man receiving threatening letters, but he is unable to prevent him from being killed with an arrow.$1.75

» More Info

Ian Fleming: The Man behind James Bond

Andrew Lycett
Sportsman, womanizer, naval commander, spy, this suave creator of the Cold War’s archetypal secret agent was infinitely more complicated and interesting than his fictional character, Agent 007.$31.99

» More Info

Hollywood Studios, The: House Style in the Golden Age of the Movies

Ethan Mordden
Hollywood in the years between 1929 and 1948 was a town of moviemaking empires. It was the Golden Age of the movies, and each studio made its distinctive contribution.$22.99

» More Info


Home	Special Offers	Free	My Library	Basket	Help