SOURCE: “The Ritual of Midsummer: A Pattern for A Midsummer Night's Dream,” in Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 31, No. 1, 1978, pp. 21-29.

In the following essay, Vlasopolos explores the parallels between the ritual of Midsummer, or St. John's Day, and the play's structure.

Interpretations of A Midsummer Night's Dream have suffered from a hesitation or a downright refusal on the part of critics to consider the full significance of the ritual of Midsummer, or Saint John's Day, in Shakespeare's comedy. The play, like the ritual which informs its structure, maintains a dual frame of reference, Christian and pagan. Within this frame such seemingly unrelated subjects as the moon and dew imagery, the frequent reference to eyes, and the business of magic plants, particularly the peacemaking ‘Dians bud,’ become thematic components of the comic movement toward reconciliation of natural and lawful love. The lovers' progression from the night of misrule to the...