SOURCE: An introduction to William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, written and edited by Harold Bloom, Chelsea House Publishers, 1987, pp. 1-5.

In the following essay, Bloom praises Bottom as the heart of the play, and as its most original figure. Bloom goes on to contrast Bottom's goodness, common sense, homeliness and humanity with Puck and his world, which threaten to "ravish reality away."

On the loftiest of the world's thrones we still are sitting only on our own Bottom

MONTAIGNE, "Of Experience"

I will get Peter Quince to write a ballet of this dream. It shall be call 'd "Bottom's Dream, " because it hath no bottom.

I

I wish Shakespeare had given us Peter Quince's ballet (ballad), but he may have been too wise to attempt the poem. A Midsummer Night's Dream, for me, is Puck and Bottom, and I prefer Bottom. Perhaps we reduce to Puckish individuals...