SOURCE: "Myth and Ritual in Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream," in Textual Strategies: Perspectives in Post-Structuralist Criticism, edited by Josué V. Harari, Cornell, 1979.
In the following excerpt, Girard argues that in A Midsummer Night's Dream Shakespeare exploits the clichés of romantic love and the structure of myth to expose the violent and self-destructive nature of desire.
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