Familiarizing Yourself with “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and the Language of Shakespeare

Of course, not all of us can understand the language of Shakespeare, also known as Middle English. We have stopped using a large fraction of the now strange-sounding words that were used by Shakespeare and other writers in 16th century England. If you have ever tried to read any 500-year-old pieces of writing, I wouldn’t blame you for giving up after a few sentences. Phrases were worded very differently and lines spoken by actors included words that are sometimes not defined in dictionaries. While I was rewriting A Midsummer Night’s Dream for my school project (read more about how I started that project here), I wanted to use some original quotes from the play, as long as they weren’t too confusing. My aid in this task was a book of the whole play (buy the book here) that had numbered lines; on the right page of the book were the lines from the play, and on the left, puzzling words and/or phrases were translated into more easy-to-understand wording. This helped me choose quotes that I liked and make them easier to comprehend. 

I obviously cannot translate the whole play for you on just this website (and especially not all at one time), but what I can do is help you understand parts of it. I am going to post separate sections of the play every week or so and will rephrase unclear words/phrases. This, hopefully, will help you understand more of what the play is talking about. After that, I will show you what my abridged version of the play looks like. Until then, check back every week for translations.