I was first introduced to A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the summer between grades six and seven. Unsurprisingly, I saw the play at Stratford (twice that year), and had one of those Shakespeare for kids type of books with this play in it. It was my second exposure to Shakespeare, and after this I was completely enamoured.

I discovered something interesting while reading the introduction of the play this time around. This play was first published in 1600; when it was republished about 20 years ago, there had been a few changes made to the play – mostly stage directions and punctuation. The copy I have is an amalgamation of these two versions (the first one has the better text, apparantely, while the second has better punctuation), which “may in some ways appear unfamiliar to those used to the ‘accepted’ text, but it reproduces as closely as possible the text used in Shakespeare’s own playhouse.” (I have the Penguin Popular Classics edition of the book, if anyone was interested. I’m thinking I might want to pick up another copy of the play now to figure out the differences.)

While not one of my favourite Shakespearian plays, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Puck is not only one of my favourite Shakespearian characters, but he's also one of my all-time favourite fairy characters. He just completely epitomizes everything I believe a fairy should be. He's magical and oh, he is so mischievious. Plus, he has all of the best lines in the play, my favourites being Lord, what fools these mortals be! (which I just noticed Chris quoted this evening in his post about this play as well), And those things do best please me // That befal preposterously and parts of his last soliloquy:

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this (and all is mended)
That you have but slumber’d here,
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream.