PREFACE. -tex THIS school edition of A Midsummer-Night's Dream differs but little in plan from the preceding edition of The Merchant of Venice. Both books aim to recognize the poetic values of Shakesperian study, and to stimulate the student to do his own thinking about the plays. The distinctive feature of the editing is to be found in the interrogative character of the notes. Information which the student could not readily obtain for himself and brief quotations of peculiarly suggestive criticism are supplied, but, more often, questions take the space usually allotted to statements of fact and opinion. The notes are divided into three groups, tual, grammatical, and literary. The text is based upon that of the first folio, quarto readings and critical guesses being introduced only where the meaning would otherwise be obscured or the cadence seriously marred. Except in case of obvious misprints, such changes are duly recorded in the notes. The textual notes present, too, all other important quarto variations, and a few of the less impertinent emendations, in order that the student may in every significant instance make his own decision as to what Shakespeare probably wrote. If the folio text as here printed be carefully revised by teacher and students in accordance with the suggestions of the notes, the exercise can hardly fail to impart a livelier sense of style in general, and of Shakesperian style in particular, together with something more than a hint of the processes and principles of Shakesperian scholarship. The textual work, however, is not designed for beginners. It may also be well for junior classes to pass over the grammatical notes, although students sufficiently advanced to undergo the drill in the niceties of language afforded by annotated editions of the Anabasis and the Eneid should find something to interest them in Elizabethan syntax. The literary notes refer to the two preceding sets in cases where acquaintance with a textual or grammatical discussion is essential to the appreciation of the passage. In illustration of those elfin and lyric qualities that are to the editor the chief charms of the play, the literary notes contain, together with questions on substance and form, and with more or less of the usual explanatory matter, many scattered bits of fairy-lore and snatches of Elizabethan song. It is hoped that these notes, judiciously administered, may result not only in a finer and more independent apprehension of the young poet's delectable fairy-drama, but in quickened fancy and fuller joy. The introduction is confined to the play under discussion. For a brief sketch of Shakespeare's early life and of the antecedent growth of the English drama, with references, and for a condensed account, with references, of Elizabethan copyright and the history of Shakesperian criticism, students may refer to the introduction of The Merchant of Venice in the Students' Series of English Classics. The welcome appearance, this past summer, of A Midsummer-Night's Dream in the "New Variorum" so ably and delightfully edited by Dr. Furness has been a cause of especial thanksgiving to the present writer, whose debt to so rich a mine of learning and wisdom may not easily be overstated. WELLESLEY COLLEGE, October, 1895. KATHARINE LEE BATES. |