SOURCE: Lancaster, Kurt. “Neil Gaiman's ‘A Midsummer Night's Dream’: Shakespeare Integrated into Popular Culture.” Journal of American & Comparative Cultures 23, no. 3 (fall 2000): 69-77.

In the following essay, Lancaster discusses Gaiman's award-winning story “A Midsummer's Night Dream,” based on the play by William Shakespeare, in terms of cultural divisions between “high” and “low” art. Lancaster asserts that Gaiman's story successfully integrates the mythic qualities of Shakespeare into a popular modern medium.

How this particular man produced the works that dominate the cultures of much of the world almost four hundred years after his death is one of life's mysteries—and one that will continue to tease our imaginations as we continue to delight in his plays and poems.

(Mowat and Werstine 1993: xxxv)

[BILL Moyers:]

But, Shakespeare has no audience, today, to speak of. He really doesn't. 

[PETER Sellars:]

Well, our audience has been taught that Shakespeare is not theirs. Our...