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Midsummer Night's Dream
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Midsummer Night's Dream

Written By - William Shakespeare
Narrated By - Full Cast Production
Published By - NAXOS
Length - 2 hours 20 minutes
Categories - Shakespeare
Download Price - $14.99
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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.

 

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Other titles you may be interested in

 

Tempest, The

Tempest, The

Written By - William Shakespeare
Narrated By - Full Cast Production
Published By - NAXOS
Length - 2 hours 10 minutes
Categories - Shakespeare
Download Price - $11.49
Ian McKellen, as Prospero, heads a strong cast in Shakespeare's last great play. The wronged Duke raises a tempest to shipwreck his old opponents on his island so that he can ensure justice... See full description...
Coriolanus

Coriolanus

Written By - William Shakespeare
Narrated By - Full Cast Production
Published By - BBC Audiobooks Ltd
Length - 2 hours 45 minutes
Categories - Shakespeare
British
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Samuel West and Susannah York star in Shakespeare's great tragedy of power and pride. See full description...
King Richard III

King Richard III

Written By - William Shakespeare
Narrated By - Full Cast Production
Published By - NAXOS
Length - 3 hours 20 minutes
Categories - Shakespeare
Download Price - $14.99
Kenneth Branagh heads an outstanding cast in playing one of Shakespeare's strongest characters. The eighth production in the widely admired series of Shakespeare plays presented by Naxos AudioBooks... See full description...
Much Ado About Nothing

Much Ado About Nothing

Written By - William Shakespeare
Narrated By - Full Cast Production
Published By - BBC Audiobooks Ltd
Length - 2 hours 15 minutes
Categories - Dramatizations
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David Tennant stars as Benedick with Samantha Spiro as Beatrice in Shakespeare's merry comedy of wit, words and romance. See full description...
Hamlet

Hamlet

Written By - William Shakespeare
Narrated By - David Ian Davies
Published By - One Voice Recordings
Length - 38 minutes
Categories - Shakespeare
Download Price - $5.00
Shakespeare's classic as dramatized by renowned vocal actor David I. Davies See full description...

 

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