A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare, suggested

by "The Knight's Tale" from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, written around 1594 to
1596. It portrays the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of amateur actors,
their interactions with the Duke and Duchess of Athens, Theseus and Hippolyta, and with the
fairies who inhabit a moonlit forest. The play is one of Shakespeare's most popular works for the
stage and is widely performed across the world.

Sources

It is not known exactly when A Midsummer Night's Dream was written or first
performed, but, on the basis of topical references and an allusion to Spenser's Epithalamion, it is
usually dated 1595 or 1596. Some have theorised that the play might have been written for an
aristocratic wedding (numerous such weddings took place in 1596), while others suggest that it
was written for the Queen to celebrate the feast day of St. John. No concrete evidence exists to
support either theory. In any case, it would have been performed at The Theatre and, later, The
Globe in London.

Some features of the plot and characters can be traced to elements of earlier
mythologically based literature; for example, the story of Pyramus and Thisbe is told in Ovid's
Metamorphoses and the transformation of Bottom into an ass is descended from Apuleius' The
Golden Ass. Lysander was also an ancient Greek warlord while Theseus and Hippolyta were
respectively the Duke of Athens and Queen of the Amazons. In addition, Shakespeare could have
been working on Romeo and Juliet at about the same time that he wrote A Midsummer Night's
Dream, and it is possible to see Pyramus and Thisbe as a comic reworking of the tragic play. A
further, seldom noted source is The Knight's Tale in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

Date and text

The play was entered into the Register of the Stationers Company on 8 October 1600 by
the bookseller Thomas Fisher, who published the first quarto edition later that year. A second
quarto was printed in 1619 by William Jaggard, as part of his so-called False Folio. The play next
appeared in print in the First Folio of 1623. The title page of Q1 states that the play was "sundry
times publicly acted" prior to 1600. The first performance known with certainty occurred at Court
on January 1, 1605.

Synopsis

The play features three interlocking plots, connected by a celebration of the wedding of
Duke Theseus of Athens and the Amazonian queen Hippolyta, and set simultaneously in the
woodland, and in the realm of Fairyland, under the light of the moon.

In the opening scene, Hermia refuses to follow her father, Egeus's instructions for her to
marry his chosen man, Demetrius. In response, Egeus quotes before Theseus an ancient Athenian
law whereby a daughter must marry the suitor chosen by her father, or else face death. Theseus
does not want this young girl to die, and offers her another choice, lifelong chastity worshipping
the goddess Diana as a nun. (The word 'nun' in this sense is an anachronism.)

Hermia and her lover Lysander decide to elope by escaping through the forest at night.
Hermia informs her friend Helena, but Helena has recently been rejected by Demetrius and
decides to win back his favour by revealing the plan to him. Demetrius, followed doggedly by
Helena, chases Hermia. Hermia and Lysander, believing themselves safely out of reach, sleep in
the woods.
 Meanwhile, Oberon, king of the fairies, and his queen, Titania, arrive in the forest outside
Athens. Titania tells Oberon that she plans to stay there until after she has attended Theseus and
Hippolyta's wedding. Oberon and Titania are estranged because Titania refuses to give her Indian
changeling to Oberon for use as his "knight" or "henchman," since the child's mother was one of
Titania's worshippers. Oberon seeks to punish Titania's disobedience and recruits the mischievous
Puck (also called Hobgoblin and Robin Goodfellow) to help him apply a magical juice from a
flower called "love-in-idleness" (a.k.a. pansy), which makes the victim fall in love with the first
living thing seen upon awakening. He instructs Puck to retrieve the flower so that he can make
Titania fall in love with some vile creature of the forest. Oberon applies the juice to Titania in
order to distract her and force her to give up the page-boy.

Having seen Demetrius act cruelly toward Helena, Oberon orders Puck to spread some of
the elixir on the eyelids of the young Athenian man. Instead, Puck accidentally puts the juice on
the eyes of Lysander, who then falls in love with Helena. Oberon sees Demetrius still following
Hermia and is enraged. When Demetrius decides to go to sleep, Oberon sends Puck to get Helena
while he charms Demetrius' eyes. Due to Puck's errors, both lovers now fight over Helena instead
of Hermia. Helena, however, is convinced that her two suitors are mocking her, as neither loved
her originally. The four pursue and quarrel with each other most of the night, until they become
so enraged that they seek a place to duel each other to the death to settle the quarrel. Oberon
orders Puck to keep the lovers from catching up with one another in the forest and to re-charm
Lysander for Hermia, to prevent them all from killing each other.

Meanwhile, a band of lower-class labourers ("rude mechanicals", as they are famously

described by Puck) have arranged to perform a crude play about Pyramus and Thisbe for Theseus'
wedding, and venture into the forest, near Titania's bower, for their rehearsal. Nick Bottom, a
stage-struck weaver, is spotted by Puck, who transforms his head into that of an ass (donkey).
Titania is awakened by Bottom's singing and immediately falls in love with him. She treats him
like a nobleman and lavishes him with attention. While in this state of devotion, she encounters
Oberon and casually gives him the Indian boy. Having achieved his goals, Oberon releases
Titania and orders Puck to remove the ass's head from Bottom. The magical enchantment is
removed from Lysander but is allowed to remain on Demetrius, so that he may reciprocate
Helena's love.

The fairies then disappear, and Theseus and Hippolyta arrive on the scene, during an
early morning hunt. They wake the lovers and, since Demetrius doesn't love Hermia anymore,
Theseus over-rules Egeus's demands and arranges a group wedding. The lovers decide that the
night's events must have been a dream. After they all exit, Bottom awakes, and he too decides
that he must have experienced a dream "past the wit of man." In Athens, Theseus, Hippolyta and
the lovers watch the mechanicals perform "Pyramus and Thisbe." It is ridiculous and badly
performed but gives everyone pleasure regardless, and afterward everyone retires to bed. Finally,
as night falls, Oberon and Titania bless the house, its occupants, and the future children of the
newlyweds, and Puck delivers a soliloquy to the audience.

Characters

• The supernatural characters:

o Oberon, King of Fairies
o Titania, Queen of Fairies
o Puck, a.k.a. Hobgoblin or Robin Goodfellow, servant to Oberon
o Titania's fairy servants (her "train"):
 First Fairy
 Peaseblossom, fairy
 Cobweb, fairy
 Moth (sometimes rendered as 'Mote'), fairy
 Mustardseed, fairy
 • The men and women in the play of high social class:
o Lysander, beloved of Hermia
o Hermia, beloved of Lysander, engaged to Demetrius
o Helena, in love with Demetrius
o Demetrius, in love with Hermia but then falls in love with Helena later on.
Engaged to Hermia
o Egeus, father of Hermia, wants to force Hermia to wed Demetrius
o Theseus, Duke of Athens, good friend of Egeus
o Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons and betrothed of Theseus
• The lower-class citizens in the play:
o Philostrate, Master of the Revels for Theseus
o The acting troupe (otherwise known as The Mechanicals):
 Peter Quince, carpenter, who leads the troupe
 Nick Bottom, weaver; he plays Pyramus in the troupe's production of
"Pyramus and Thisbe," and gets a donkey head put on him by Puck so
that Titania will magically fall in love with a monster.
 Francis Flute, the bellows-mender who plays Thisbe.
 Robin Starveling, the tailor who plays Moonshine.
 Tom Snout, the tinker who plays the wall.
 Snug, the joiner who plays the lion.

Analysis and criticism

Themes

Love

Writer David Bevington finds in the play what he refers to as the dark side of love. He
writes that the fairies make light of love by mistaking the lovers and by applying a love potion to
Titania’s eyes, forcing her to fall in love with Bottom as an ass. There are many dark sides of love
that occur in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Hippolyta is “woo’d” by a sword instead of being
given “love-tokens” in the same way Lysander has won Hermia’s love (1.1.17-30).What is even
more disturbing is the possible outcome that could have taken place at the forest. Shakespeare
borrows the myth of Pyramus and Thisbe from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, transforming it into a
play that is performed at the end and using ideas of the myth for the entire play. Like Pyramus
and Thisbe, Hermia and Lysander escape to the forest to avoid the tyranny of Hermia’s father. In
the forest, both couples are met by problems and assume that a partner is dead at some point.
Hermia and Lysander are both met by Puck, who provides some comedic relief in the play by
confusing the four lovers in the forest. Despite the darkness and difficulty that obstructs the love
in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, it is still a comedy as Benedetto Croce indicates. He writes,
“love is sincere, yet deceives and is deceived; it imagines itself to be firm and constant, and turns
out to be fragile and fleeting”.This passage, like the play juxtaposes one idea next to another. The
play is a comedy, yet it harbors serious ideas. At the end of the play, Hermia and Lysander,
happily married, watch the play about the unfortunate lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe, and are able to
enjoy and laugh about the play, not realizing the similarities between them. Although their story
is very similar to that of Pyramus and Thisbe, it does not end in tragic death. Hermia and
Lysander are both oblivious to the dark side of their love. They are not aware of the possible
outcome that could have taken place at the forest.

Loss of individual identity

Maurice Hunt, Chair of the English Department at Baylor University, writes of the
blurring of the identities of fantasy and reality in the play that make possible “that pleasing,
narcotic dreaminess associated with the fairies of the play”.By emphasizing this theme even in
the setting of the play, Shakespeare prepares the reader’s mind to accept the fantastic reality of
the fairy world and its magical happenings. This also seems to be the axis around which the plot
conflicts in the play occur. Hunt suggests that it is the breaking down of individual identities that
leads to the central conflict in the story.It is the brawl between Oberon and Titania, based on a
lack of recognition for the other in the relationship, that drives the rest of the drama in the story
and makes it dangerous for any of the other lovers to come together due to the disturbance of
Nature caused by a fairy dispute. Similarly, this failure to identify and make distinction is what
leads Puck to mistake one set of lovers for another in the forest and place the juice of the flower
on Lysander’s eyes instead of Demetrius’. Victor Kiernan, a Marxist scholar and historian, writes
that it is for the greater sake of love that this loss of identity takes place and that individual
characters are made to suffer accordingly: “It was the more extravagant cult of love that struck
sensible people as irrational, and likely to have dubious effects on its acolytes”. He believes that
identities in the play are not so much lost as they are blended together to create a type of haze
through which distinction becomes nearly impossible. It is driven by a desire for new and more
practical ties between characters as a means of coping with the strange world within the forest,
even in relationships as diverse and seemingly unrealistic as the brief love between Titania and
Bottom the Ass: “It was the tidal force of this social need that lent energy to relationships”.David
Marshall, an aesthetics scholar and English Professor at the University of California - Santa
Barbara, takes this theme to an even further conclusion, pointing out that the loss of identity is
especially played out in the description of the mechanicals their assumption of other identities. In
describing the occupations of the acting troupe, he writes “Two construct or put together, two
mend and repair, one weaves and one sews. All join together what is apart or mend what has been
rent, broken, or sundered”. In Marshall’s opinion, this loss of individual identity not only blurs
specificities, it creates new identities found in community, which Marshall points out may lead to
some understanding of Shakespeare’s opinions on love and marriage. Further, the mechanicals
understand this theme as they take on their individual parts for a corporate performance of
Pyramus and Thisbe. Marshall remarks that “To be an actor is to double and divide oneself, to
discover oneself in two parts: both oneself and not oneself, both the part and not the part”. He
claims that the mechanicals understand this and that each character, particularly among the
lovers, has a sense of laying down individual identity for the greater benefit of the group or
pairing. It seems that a desire to lose one’s individuality and find identity in the love of another is
what quietly moves the events of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It is the primary sense of
motivation and is even reflected in the scenery and mood of the story.

Ambiguous sexuality

In his essay "Preposterous Pleasures, Queer Theories and A Midsummer Night's Dream",
Douglas E. Green explores possible interpretations of alternative sexuality that he finds within the
text of the play, in juxtaposition to the proscribed social mores of the culture at the time the play
was written. He writes that his essay "does not (seek to) rewrite A Midsummer Night's Dream as a
gay play but rather explores some of its 'homoerotic significations'...moments of 'queer' disruption
and eruption in this Shakespearean comedy." Green states that he does not consider Shakspeare to
have been a "sexual radical", but that the play represented a "topsy-turvy world" or "temporary
holiday" that mediates or negotiates the "discontents of civilization", which while resolved neatly
in the story's conclusion, do not resolve so neatly in real life. Green writes that the "sodomitical
elements", "homoeroticism", "lesbianism", and even "compulsory heterosexuality" in the story
must be considered in the context of the "culture of early modern England" as a commentary on
the "aesthetic rigidities of comic form and political ideologies of the prevailing order." Aspects of
ambiguous sexuality and gender conflict in the story are also addressed in essays by Shirley
Garner and William W.E. Slights.
Other interpretations

Feminist

Male dominance is one thematic element found in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Shakespeare's comedies often include a section in which females enjoy more power and freedom
than they actually possess. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Helena and Hermia escape into the
woods for a night where they do not fall under the laws of Theseus or Egeus. Upon their arrival in
Athens, the couples are married. Marriage is seen as the ultimate social achievement for women
while men can go on to do many other great things and gain societal recognition. In his article,
"The Imperial Votaress," Louis Montrose draws attention to male and female gender roles and
norms present in the comedy in connection with Elizabethan culture. In reference to the triple
wedding, he says, "The festive conclusion in A Midsummer Night's Dream depends upon the
success of a process by which the feminine pride and power manifested in Amazon warriors,
possessive mothers, unruly wives, and willful daughters are brought under the control of lords
and husbands." He says that the consummation of marriage is how power over a woman changes
hands from father to husband. A connection between flowers and sexuality is drawn. The juice
employed by Oberon can be seen as symbolizing menstrual blood as well as the sexual blood
shed by virgins. While blood as a result of menstruation is representative of a woman's power,
blood as a result of a first sexual encounter represents man's power over women.

There are points in the play, however, when there is an absence of patriarchal control. In
his book, Power on Display, Leonard Tennenhouse says the problem in A Midsummer Night's
Dream is the problem of "authority gone archaic." The Athenian law requiring a daughter to die if
she does not do her father's will is outdated. Tennenhouse contrasts the patriarchal rule of
Theseus in Athens with that of Oberon in the carnivalistic Faerie world. The disorder in the land
of the faeries completely opposes the world of Athens. He states that during times of carnival and
festival, male power is broken down. For example, what happens to the four lovers in the woods
as well as Bottom's dream represents chaos that contrasts with Theseus' political order. However,
Theseus does not punish the lovers for their disobedience. According to Tennenhouse, by
forgiving of the lovers, he has made a distinction between the law of the patriarch (Egeus) and
that of the monarch (Theseus), creating two different voices of authority. This distinction can be
compared to the time of Elizabeth I in which monarchs were seen as having two bodies: the body
natural and the body mystical. Elizabeth's succession itself represented both the voice of a
patriarch as well as the voice of a monarch: (1) her father's will which stated that the crown
should pass to her and (2) the fact that she was the daughter of a king. The challenge to
patriarchal rule in A Midsummer Night's Dream mirrors exactly what was occurring in the age of
Elizabeth I.

Religious

Patricia Parker, professor of English at Stanford University and the editor of the New
Arden edition of this play has argued that it contains a religious allegory. It has been well
established for two centuries that Puck and Robin Goodfellow are both names for the devil from
English folklore. Parker argues that the character of 'Wall' acted by Snout represents the partition
that exists between Earth and Heaven and that comes down on the day of Apocalypse. Pyramus
and Thisbe are a late Renaissance allegory for Jesus and the Church, and that the source of the
names Peter (petros, Greek for a stone), and Quince (quoin, a term for a wedge shaped
cornerstone) suggests his identity as St Peter. The play-within-the play therefore appears to be a
religious satire. The allegorical dimension was extended to the other characters and demonstrated
in performance by the Dark Lady Players in a New York production in March 2007
Characters
Theseus
The duke of Athens. Theseus is a hero from Greek mythology—he refers to the fact that he's
Hercules' cousin at one point—so his presence signals to the reader that the play takes place in a
mythical Greek past. At the beginning of the play, Theseus has recently returned from conquering
the Amazons, a race of warrior women, and is about to marry the conquered Amazon queen,
Hippolyta. Because of this impending wedding, the mood of the play is one of holiday festivity,
characterized by a heightened sense of erotic expectation and anticipation. Theseus himself
projects confidence, authority, and benevolent power.

Hippolyta
The legendary queen of the Amazons, engaged to marry Theseus. Although Hippolyta is
marrying Theseus because he defeated her in combat, she does not act at all like an unwilling
bride. Theseus is very courtly in his manner toward Hippolyta, and she is unfailingly deferential
toward him.

Egeus
A respected nobleman in Theseus's court. Egeus complains to Theseus that his daughter, Hermia,
refuses to marry Demetrius, Egeus's choice for her. Egeus's wish to control his daughter is quite
severe—he asks Theseus to impose the death penalty on her if she refuses to marry Demetrius.
Theseus, however, reduces the penalty for noncompliance from death to life as a nun.

Hermia
Egeus's daughter. Hermia is a beautiful young woman of Athens, and both Demetrius and
Lysander are in love with her. Hermia defies her father's wish that she marry Demetrius because
she is in love with Lysander. She is unusually strong-willed and independent—refusing to
comply even when Theseus orders her to obey her father—and resolved to elope with Lysander.
Hermia is also the childhood friend of Helena.

Lysander
A young nobleman of Athens in love with Hermia. Although Hermia's father refuses to let her
marry Lysander, Lysander believes that love must conquer all obstacles, so he persuades Hermia
to run away from her home and family with him, into the forest.

Demetrius
A young nobleman of Athens. In the past, Demetrius acted as if he loved Helena, but after Helena
fell in love with him, he changed his mind and pursued Hermia. Emboldened by Egeus's approval
of him, Demetrius is undeterred by the fact that Hermia does not want him.

Helena
A young woman of Athens in love with Demetrius. Helena has been rejected and abandoned by
Demetrius, who had claimed to love her before he met her best friend, Hermia. Consequently,
Helena tends to speak in a self-pitying tone. Moreover, she puts herself in dangerous and
humiliating situations, running through the forest at night after Demetrius even though Demetrius
wants nothing to do with her.

Robin Goodfellow
A “puck” or mischievous fairy who delights in playing pranks on mortals; he is sometimes
referred to simply as Puck. Robin is Oberon's jester, and his antics are responsible for many of the
complications that propel the play. At Oberon's bidding, Robin sprinkles “love juice” in the eyes
of various characters to change who they love, but he makes mistakes in his application that
create conflicts Oberon never intended. Though Robin claims to make these mistakes honestly, he
enjoys the conflict and mayhem that his mistakes cause.
Oberon
The king of the fairies. Oberon begins the play at odds with his wife, Titania, because she refuses
to relinquish control of a young Indian prince whom she has kidnapped, but whom Oberon wants
for a knight. Oberon's desire for revenge on Titania leads him to send Robin to obtain the love-
potion flower that creates so much of the play's confusion and farce.

Titania
The beautiful queen of the fairies. Titania resists the attempts of her husband, Oberon, to make a
knight of the young Indian prince whom she has taken. Until Oberon gives up his demand,
Titania has sworn to avoid his company and his bed. She is less upset by the fact that she and
Oberon are apart than by the fact that Oberon has been disrupting her and her followers' magic
fairy dances.

Nick Bottom
The overconfident weaver chosen to play Pyramus in a play that a group of craftsmen have
decided to put on for Theseus's wedding celebration. Bottom is full of advice and self-confidence
but frequently makes silly mistakes and misuses language. His simultaneous nonchalance about
the beautiful Titania's sudden love for him and unawareness of the fact that Puck has transformed
his head into that of an ass mark the pinnacle of his foolish arrogance.

Peter Quince
A carpenter and the nominal leader of the craftsmen's attempt to put on a play for Theseus's
marriage celebration. Quince is often shoved aside by the abundantly confident Bottom. During
the craftsmen's play, Quince plays the Prologue.

Francis Flute
The bellows-mender chosen to play Thisbe in the craftsmen's play for Theseus's marriage
celebration. Forced to play a young girl in love, the bearded craftsman determines to speak his
lines in a high, squeaky voice.

Robin Starveling
The tailor chosen to play Thisbe's mother in the craftsmen's play for Theseus's marriage
celebration. Robin Starveling ends up playing the part of Moonshine.

Tom Snout
The tinker chosen to play Pyramus's father in the craftsmen's play for Theseus's marriage
celebration. Tom Snout ends up playing the part of Wall, dividing the two lovers.

Snug
The joiner chosen to play the lion in the craftsmen's play for Theseus's marriage celebration. Snug
worries that his roaring will frighten the ladies in the audience.

Philostrate
Theseus's Master of the Revels, responsible for organizing the entertainment for the duke's
marriage celebration.

Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Mote, and Mustardseed

The fairies whom Titania orders to wait on Bottom after she falls in love with him.