I've been reading a bit of
Midsummer Night's Dream on the bog. I love the names of the 'rude mechanicals'. (And some of the comedy in their scenes is still amusing.) I like how Puck is a nasty piece of shit that enjoys tearing mortals to shreds through emotional manipulation/date rape. I love Bottom. (Quote that
@Mr. Tea.) No need to mention the language – but was any other SS written so predominantly in heroic couplets?
But what I never quite twigged before is that the whole thing could be read as a satiric takedown on the arbitrariness and madness of love. A comedy in the sense of showing life to be farcical (and theatrical, natch).