David Bruce

William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream": a Retelling in Prose David Bruce

This is an easy-to-read retelling of William Shakespeare's ""A Midsummer Night's Dream,"" whose major theme is love and the silly things it makes us do: 1) Love can make us see a distinction where no real distinction exists. 2) Love can make us desire someone who is totally unsuitable for us. 3) Love can make us blind to the loved one's faults. 4) Love can make us jealous. 5) Love can make friends enemies. 6) Love can make us quarrelsome. 7) Love can make us fickle. 8) If we are rejected, love can make us have low self-esteem (e.g., Helena). 9) Love can make us chase after someone who hates us. 10) Love can make us attempt to use reason to explain love although love is a nonrational emotion. (Lysander does this.) 11) Love is not irrational, although it can make people act in silly ways. Love is nonrational. 12) One of the best comments on the nonrationality of love is made by Bottom: "And yet, to say the truth, reason / and love keep little company together nowadays."