Widely recognized as a comic masterpiece, A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of Shakespeare's most popular works. The play has inspired numerous adaptations, including Felix Mendelssohn's acclaimed musical score for a nineteenth-century production. Written about 1595, A Midsummer Night's Dream is considered Shakespeare's first mature comedy.
By blending motifs from various classical works, such as the first-century Roman poet Ovid's Metamorphoses and the second century Roman orator Apuleius's Golden Ass, the playwright successfully balanced a variety of narrative styles and dramatic procedures to create an unforgettable artistic effect. The plot of A Midsummer Night's Dream is Shakespeare's own, however: he did not follow his usual practice of adapting an older story. This account of the tribulations of a love quadrangle during a night of madness imaginatively combines ambiguous allusions, wordplay, sinister hints, fragments of noble poetry, and profound meditations on the nature of art and love. The brilliant characterization, richness of language, and compositional complexity of this play have provided critics and commentators with material for much theorizing. As for the general reader and theater-goer, A Midsummer Night's Dream remains a timeless and limitless source of aesthetic pleasure.
This complete Introduction contains 188 words. This
study guide contains 59,990 words (approx. 200 pages at 300
words per page).
