SOURCE: "A Midsummer Night's Dream," in Shakespeare 's Comedies: From Roman Farce to Romantic Mystery, University of Delaware Press, 1986, pp. 73-89.

In the following excerpt, Ornstein identifies the "complex and perfectly assured dramatic structure" of A Midsummer Night's Dream as the principal element distinguishing it from Shakespeare's earlier comedies.

If the only plays of Shakespeare that survived were the comedies written before A Dream, he would seem an interesting, gifted writer who failed to realize his potential as dramatist. The unfolding of his powers is evident in the early comedies, but with each artistic advance there is an apparent loss or setback, so that all the achievements are somewhat flawed if not uncertain. Love's Labor 's reaches beyond the Plautine farcing of Errors but lacks satisfying dramatic form. Two Gentlemen adds psychological complexity and subtle irony to romantic characterization but loses itself in a meandering and ultimately self-parodying...