A Midsummer Night's Dream (A Graphic Novel Audio): Graphic Shakespeare

Written by William Shakespeare

Narrated by Saddleback Educational Publishing

A Midsummer Night's Dream takes place in mythical Athens. The theme of the story is that love has no laws and is blind and unpredictable. William Shakespeare wrote many great comedies and tragedies. This story, an entertaining fantasy, takes the reader through a romantic farce on a midsummer's eve, during a time of great rejoicing amongst the elves and fairies who live in the woods. Puck, Oberon, Theseus, Hermia, Demetrius, Helena, Bottom, and Lysander are just a few of the characters in this timeless, world-famous comedy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Saddleback Educational Publishing
• Release date: Jan 1, 2006
• ISBN: 9781612474250

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest playwright the world has seen. He produced an astonishing amount of work; 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and 5 poems. He died on 23rd April 1616, aged 52, and was buried in the Holy Trinity Church, Stratford.

Reviews for A Midsummer Night's Dream (A Graphic Novel Audio)

[elmyra_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Was promted to re-read this by reading Neil Gaiman's eponymous Sandman short story. Learned:That my English has gotten a hell of a lot better in the last 11 years. This was the first Shakespeare play I tried to read, and I read it by myself at the time, so I didn't really get it.That I still don't really get the "brilliance" of this particular Sandman story.That I should probably read more Shakespeare.That some of the notes to this edition are utterly useless, and that Reclam can't quite decide what level of audience they're aiming their notes and translations at.

[brianinbuffalo · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

As hard as I've tried, I could never quite get into this one. I've read it once and seen it performed twice. Both productions were classy. Still, I found the play tedious.

[hvymetalmg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Having taken a Shakespeare class in college, I've read, studied and analyzed a number of the bard's plays. This was a sleeper as it turned out to be my favorite. If a book this old can make me laugh, that says something, especially when most television shows today can't make me smirk.

[norabelle414 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's no Twelfth Night (my favorite comedy), but it's still one of Shakespeare's better plays. I especially laughed at the 4 lovers' tendencies to follow each other around like puppydogs. I was interested to notice a difference in the speech between the mechanicals and everyone else (fairies, noblemen/women). In their everyday speech, the mechanicals did not use pentameter, while everyone else did.

[aarondesk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A comedy by Shakespeare on love and marriage. The way he mixes English culture with ancient mythology is brilliant.

[susiesharp_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

How do you review Shakespeare? I guess I can say this Play is my favorite of Shakespeare’s plays. This has been reviewed by much better reviewers than me so I will just review the audio.I listened to the full cast audiobook with musical interludes and it was really good. Narration is by 20 wonderful cast members from Naxos Audiobooks. I have always said Shakespeare is meant to be read out-loud so this was a treat like listening to a play of it with songs and sound effects.If you get the chance to listen to this on audio you should do it!

[phoenixcomet · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's Shakespeare, so I'm naturally biased as to its excellence. The play is short, sweet, funny, endearing and my daughter is going to perform in it so I wanted to know the story line prior to watching her on stage. The King of the Fairies and Puck causes all sorts of mischief amongst the humans Lysander, Demetrius, Helen, and Hermia, not to mention the trouble he causes for his wife Titania and Botton, the merchant actor.

[ncgraham_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I honestly feel as though I’ve ruined this play for myself. When I first read it during my last year of middle school, I was immediately taken with nearly everything about it—the quarrelling lovers, the comedy, the supernatural element—so taken that I tried to film a shortened version of it with some of my friends. Obviously, what with reading my own bowdlerized imaginings of the lines over and over again, not to mention listening to all of us trying to recite the Bard, my estimation of it was sullied somewhat.Reading it again, I find that I still enjoy it, and can respect it as a finely-crafted piece of comedy, but I don’t think it will ever again number among my very favorites from Shakespeare. And that is my fault, not his.As for the play itself, what is there to say? The language is wonderful, of course. Every word, every phrase, every sentence is perfectly judged. No one has ever equaled Shakespeare when it comes to using literary devices to bring about specific dramatic effects. The same features that make Oberon’s speeches so lyrically beautiful—alliteration, rhyme, assonance—Shakespeare uses to highlight the ridiculousness of the mechanical’s entertainment. Has there ever been alliteration as funny as this?Whereat with blade, with bloody blameful blade,He bravely broached his broiling blood breastThe whole of the Pyramus and Thisbe play-within-a-play is inspired; I don’t know whether Midsummer came before or after Romeo and Juliet in Shakespeare’s oeuvre, but it’s wonderful to see him touch on the same themes in a comic context. I had to stage that scene with zombies and werewolves for a class this past semester (you see? … this play just won’t let me alone!), and let me tell you, anything that can survive that treatment is pure gold.Some things surprised me while I was rereading this. One was the maturity of the content; Demetrius basically tells Helena that, if she does not stop following him, he will rape her! Shakespeare ain’t for the kiddies, folks.Helena is, I think, my favorite character, after Bottom and Puck. The latter’s closing speech is one of my favorites from Shakespeare, and probably the best of his epilogues, with the possible exception of Prospero’s from The Tempest.In spite of my erratic history with the play, I would recommend it. You can’t go wrong with the Bard.

[osunale · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I consider this my first Shakespeare: this is the play that made me fall in love with the master. It's a supremely delightful work that never wears thin with time. It's that immortal "O lord, what fools these mortals be" that does me in every time. Humorous and splendidly human despite the fairies dancing across the words.

[tygers_eye · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

** spoiler alert ** This is a very dramatic lovestory about two men, one named Demetrius, one named Lysander, and two girls, one named Helena, and one named Hermia. Hermia loves Lysander, and wants to marry him, even though her father doesn't like him and wants her to marry Demetrius. Helena loves Demetrus, but is jealous of Hermia because he loves her and not Helena. The fairies cast chaotic love spells that cause much trouble, as well as trouble for the fairies, not just Lysander and Demetrius and Helena and Hermia.

[haruka3h · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Some decades ago we couldn't marry fleely.Sometimes we forced to marry who didn't want to marry.I think it is very sad.This book has many characters.So it's story is little complicated.But I felt happy to be all the people became happy at the end of the story.

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"The course of true love never did run smooth,” comments Lysander, articulating one of A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s most important themes—that of the difficulty of love (I.i.134). Though most of the conflict in the play stems from the troubles of romance, and though the play involves a number of romantic elements, it is not truly a love story; it distances the audience from the emotions of the characters in order to poke fun at the torments and afflictions that those in love suffer. The tone of the play is so lighthearted that the audience never doubts that things will end happily, and it is therefore free to enjoy the comedy without being caught up in the tension of an uncertain outcome.This play has insoired many musicians, notably Felix Mendelssohn who wrote an overture and incidental music for the play. It also inspired Benjamin Britten to write one of his best and most impressive operas. Britten used the text of the play for his libretto which is rarely done. A fantasy, this is among my favorite of all Shakespeare's plays.

[shay3hanes · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A Midsummer Night's Dream starts off with 4 stoies, but at the end they all come together. There was one with 4 people who were in love. The love got all switched around by fairies. Some of the fairies were fighting over a child. At the end the love got all staightened. They all got married and Oberon a fairy got the child. Everything was good at the end. I liked this book. The book really got my attention. The book was diferent, but reall interesting. i hope to read the book. I encourage most people to read this. If you like different but interesting books you should read this book.

[librarylou · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of my favourite Shakespeare plays, very witty and funny.

[ckarmstr1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a more narrative version of Shakepeare's play. The story is told like any other story not in play form. Shakespeare's stories are meant to be seen not read, so the illustrations in this book help the story come alive. This is one of Shakespeare's most lighthearted tales, and I think the illustrations do it justice.

[shanaqui_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Studied it for A Level. I wasn't really fond, though there were some good/clever bits in the writing.

[paradox98_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of my favorite comedies. Significant to me because I've actually been in a love rhombus, as it were; therefore, I can relate some of the characters.

[millsge_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Bottom stands just a couple of steps below Iago, Othello, and Falstaff among the beings created by Shakespeare. Not a "rutting" donkey, but an innocent, good-natured, modern man who knows that the world has gone made, but who is too gentle and nice to tell that to the characters that surround him. His is the play's true story, the rest is a comic masque designed to delight some of the most powerful in England - including the Queen. Obregon's speech in the Queen's honor is some of Shakespeare's best writing.

[jovanh470volny · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A Midsummer night’s dream is a incredibly humorous and well drafted play by literatures greatest mind, William Shakespeare. It is comprised of four different stories which are brilliantly styled together. The first part is about a royal wedding for the duke of Athens and his bride Titania, a lady of the Amazon. The second is of a tangle of six lovers who are horribly situated and cannot have who they desire because of certain circumstances. The next story is about a dispute between a king and queen of fairies over a certain Indian or changeling boy. This part of the story intentionally brings the "magic" or more interesting parts of the story. The next and final story is of several tradesmen who have absolutely no business whatsoever with writing plays, yet are attempting to perform a play for the duke and his brides wedding. The main forward running problem in the story was that the lovers’couldn’t love who they longed for, and the story is resolved and in some parts worsened by an effective juice of love, born from the failed arrow shot of cupids shot. This juice can cause a severe love for someone when applied to someone. Its magic untangled and mended the barriers between he lovers, and also created a solution for many other problems in the story.I enjoyed this book, and I don’t usually enjoy books. But I think it makes sense since it is crafted by who people consider to be the greatest literary mind ever known to man. I have never once read or experienced any of the works by Shakespeare, but have only heard of them, mainly his universally known quotes. And for a first time reading one of his creations I thought it was outstanding, and hysterical. What also made this such a fun read was that i got to act most of it out, that made the experience all the more enjoyable.

[glenline · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A hilarious masterpiece. A great romp in the woods. Having the characters stage a play seems unique to me.

[rodor_10 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

You have to give it to the greatest playwright who ever lived to write a complicated comedy on true love. In this play, Shakespeare intertwines the lives of four sets of characters in four plots. In begins with Theseus, the Duke of Athens complaining to his bethrothed Hippolyta how four days is a long time to wait for his wedding to her, the Queen of the Amazons. He wounded and defeated her in battle, but wooed her in captivity. Then enters the second set of characters: Egeus, who asks that Theseus explains the Athenian law to Hermia, his daughter, who either follows her father's wishes and marry Demetrius or be condemned to a life of virginity in a nunnery. This consequence is considered worse than death at that time. Hermia loves Lysander instead and the couple plan to meet in the woods to elope. Helena, on the other hand, is in love with Demetrius, tells him about the plan, and goes with him to the woods. The third set of characters is a group of local laborers led by Nick Bottom, a weaver, also a "pompous ass". They come to the woods to rehearse "Pyramus and Thisbe" for Theseus' wedding celebration. The play is about a love affair that ends in a tragedy. The fourth set of characters are Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of the fairies and their attendant sprites led by Puck, a mischievous one. Oberon and Titania meet in the woods and jealously argue over their mortal loves. The main characters fall asleep in the woods and Oberon sets Puck's mischiefs rolling when he orders him to squeeze the "love-at-first-sight" juice of the pansy, "love-in-idleness" on Titania's eyes while sleeping to teach her a lesson. Puck also was to apply it on Demetrius eyes so he reciprocates Helena's affections. Titania wakes up and falls in love with Bottom, whose head Puck turns into that of an ass. He mistakes Lysander for Demetrius; squeezes juice on Lysander's eyes; gets reprimanded by Oberon; squeezes juice on Demetrius' eyes. Now both knaves are in love with Helena who thinks they are mocking her and leaves a puzzled Hermia. It is up to Puck to mend his mischiefs. The 16th century language and the script format of the play makes it a difficult reading. Reading it out loud and playing the part helps in understanding. I eventually got the subtle pun after reading it several times. I had a good glimpse of how a genius' mind works after comprehending this play.

[rebeca_leal_32 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I really loved this one but it would be SO MUCH BETTER if we had some visual stuff with the reading, especially because I wanna show this novel to my students but as they are kids, its way better if we have visual materials too.

[ericpatterson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

While I am not a huge Shakespeare fan I did find this particular play to be pretty darn good. I enjoyed the fact that there was this mix of fantasy with ideas that we can all relate to with unrequited love. It was fascinating to see how Shakespeare made fun of his own play "Romeo and Juliet" within the story as well. There is such a great woven story here that anyone that enjoys reading plays should read this. This was another book that I had to read for my Theatre course.

[caralpeacock · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I like teaching A Midsummer Night's Dream to the 8th graders because a lot of it is written in prose (plain language instead of poetry) so it's easy to read. It also keeps the students' attention because it is full of love spells and people falling in love with the wrong people. It's kind of like a soap opera... and it's FUNNY!!

[dfitzgerald_50 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I know as an educator and librarian, it is assumed by most that I am a lover of Shakespeare. However, I must come clean. I am not. I actually truly dislike reading the 16th century language and I have trouble getting past that to try and enjoy the story. That being said however, I chose to read this because the majority of English teachers at my school teach this classic and I wanted to be able to have conversations with the students about it. I will say, A Midsummer Night's Dream is my favorite Shakespeare play so far and I feel like I accomplished something by reading it.

[amaraduende · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

*gasp* Can I put Shakespeare in my fantasy shelf? :)

This is just such a delicious treat to read. Do yourself a favor and read it outloud - at least parts of it. It's just so fun.

[bryndahlquis · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This will always be my favorite Shakespeare play. I love all the fairies, Puck especially, and I'll never get over the four lovers' quarrels when half of them are under spells. Plus, how can anyone not enjoy Pyramus and Thisby?

[bkohl_6 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A Midsummer Night's Deam is the story of four couples. Theseus and Hippolyta are about to get married, after Theseus captures the Queen of the Amazons (and presumably some sort of courtship, since she seems to be amenable to getting married). Hermia wants to marry Lysander, despite her father's objections. Helena wants to marry Demetrius, if only he weren't in love with Hermia. And Oberon and Titania, king and queen of the fairies, are having a tiff about household help. After an evening wandering around the woods, with a little enchantment, humor and chaos, they get it all sorted out.The only happy ending I dislike is Oberon and Titania. Oberon gets his way by making his wife ridiculous, about which she doesn't seem the slightest bit upset. I doubt Queen Elizabeth would have put up with that kind of treatment.

[vandev11 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” follows two interwoven stories, one concerning the marriage of Lysander and Hermia, and the other concerning the transformation of Nick Bottom into a donkey by the queen of fairies.This is one of Shakespeare’s more easily accessible plays for younger audiences, although the plot lines can be confusing at times. This play shows the lighter side of Shakespeare’s works and can be very rewarding for students who are unfamiliar with or daunted by Shakespeare’s works.

[merigreenleaf · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is my second favorite Shakespeare play, just narrowly being beaten out by "The Tempest" (if you want to know how much I love these books, I'm tempted to name future children Miranda, Lysander, and Demetrius). I love all the subplots that occur throughout the story (the play within a play and the men acting in it are just hilarious!) and I love all the humor throughout. And this play has Puck- what a great character; he's definitely up there as one of my favorite characters written by the Bard.This is just such a fun play that I'll heartily recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it- and if you have, you should go reread it (I must be up to about six or seven rereads by now). ;) Hands down, this gets 5 stars out of 5; if I could give it more, I would!