Overview

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a glittering masterpiece which was revolutionary in its time argues Tom Bishop - the most complicated piece of plotting in any English play. Held together by a lyrical energy at once enthralling and playful, it is about love and the role of the imagination in love, and its view of us mortals is roughly Puck's "Lord, what fools these mortals be!". But our folly, Shakespeare suggests, is also a blessing: the paradox at the heart of the play is that the source of all that is most dangerous and destructive in the world is also the source of all that is best in it.