The Shakespeare Plays / A Midsummer Night’s Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
You too will be enamored with an ass.
One of Shakespeare’s most charming and beloved plays, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is set in ancient Athens (though almost never depicted there), where we await a wedding but must cope with four young lovers forcibly mismatched, first by an oppressive dad but especially when some love-juice from the fairies goes awry. Meanwhile, some incompetent townspeople try to prepare a play and one of them gets turned into a jackass.
Why does Shakespeare choose “midsummer night” when there are indications in the play of an earlier springtime setting? The time seems out of joint.
What is Bottom really saying and not saying in the “Bottom’s Dream” soliloquy?
Since every love couple represents a type of relationship no one should want – forced, or contentious, or abusive, or drug-induced – why in the end do we not feel a sense of nihilism, but quite the opposite?
Professor Michael Delahoyde and guest commentator Dr. Earl Showerman, one of the world’s foremost scholars on the Greek sources showing Oxford as Shakespeare, walk us through Shakespeare’s comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream, act by act!
Replay video coming soon.
Themes
The main themes of A Midsummer Night's Dream include
- Transformation and Metamorphosis
- Deception and Illusion
- Human Folly
- Order and Disorder
- Nature and the Supernatural
Plot Summary
A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare is a romantic comedy that intertwines the lives of four Athenian lovers, a group of amateur actors, and the fairies who inhabit a magical forest outside Athens.
The play begins with Duke Theseus preparing for his marriage to Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons. Meanwhile, Hermia is in love with Lysander, but her father wants her to marry Demetrius. Hermia and Lysander decide to flee to the forest to escape the arranged marriage, followed by Demetrius and Helena, who is desperately in love with him.
In the forest, the Fairy King Oberon and Queen Titania are having a quarrel over a young Indian prince. Oberon seeks revenge by instructing his mischievous servant, Puck, to use a magical flower to make Titania fall in love with the first creature she sees upon waking. Puck mistakenly applies the flower’s juice to the eyes of Lysander, causing him to fall in love with Helena instead of Hermia.
Chaos ensues as the four lovers become entangled in a web of mistaken identities and shifting affections. Meanwhile, a group of amateur actors led by the bumbling Bottom also enters the forest to rehearse a play for Theseus’ wedding. Puck transforms Bottom’s head into that of a donkey, leading to further confusion and hilarity.
In the end, Oberon reverses the spell, restoring the lovers’ true affections. Theseus pardons them and arranges for their marriages. The play concludes with the performance of the amateur actors’ play, which is hilariously inept but well-received by the wedding party. Peace is restored, and the fairies bless the newlyweds as they sleep.
Sources
A Midsummer Night’s Dream may have been written as early as the 1580s and revised in the mid-1590s. It was first published in 1600.
Ending in three weddings and a reconciliation, the play may have been an epithalamium, a literary work written to celebrate a marriage. If it was presented for a real life wedding in the mid-1590s, the timing aligns with the wedding of Oxford’s daughter Elizabeth to the Earl of Derby.
What works inspired the author?
- Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Arthur Golding’s 1567 translation. This work provided the stories of Pyramus and Thisbe and Midas receiving donkey ears.
- Plutarch’s Lives in Thomas North’s 1579 translation gave details about Theseus and Hipployta.
- Huon of Burdeux, translated by Lord Berners c. 1534 gave details for Oberon.
- The plays of John Lyly
Act by Act Analysis and more evidence for Oxford's authorship
Michael Delahoyde, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Overview and Act by Act.
Visit the website of Professor Michael Delahoyde, host of our series, for an act by act analysis and full treatment of Oxfordian themes in the play.
Learn more!
Earl Showerman, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Shakespeare’s Aristophanic Comedy.” Brief Chronicles VI (2015).
Kevin Gilvary, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Dating Shakespeare’s Plays.” Dating Shakespeare’s Plays. (2010)
Roger Stritmatter, “On the chronology and performance venue of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Shakespeare Oxford Newsletter, 2006.
BOOK
William Farina, De Vere as Shakespeare: An Oxfordian Reading of the Canon. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co., 2006. 44-48.
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