A Midsummer Night’s Dream
(William Shakespeare’s)

William Shakespeare, playwright extraordinaire, lived in 16th to 17th Century England. He wrote an immense number of plays, including the still popular Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo & Juliet. Many of his plays were written as part of the Lord Chamberlain's Men—later known as the King's Men—who were a company of players, or actors. Although Shakespeare is synonymous with the Globe Theatre, a great number of his plays were performed at Blackfriars Theatre and at court for royalty and their guests. He was also a seasoned poet and is still celebrated for his 154 sonnets, including the popular Sonnet 18. The beginning lines are possibly the most quoted out of all the sonnets: “Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.” I bet you've heard those lines before!

The 16th and early 17th Centuries in England were periods of enormous wealth and strength. Shakespeare lived through the Spanish war, saw the end of Elizabeth the Virgin Queen's reign, and heralded in the reunification of the English and Scottish thrones under one monarch, King James VI. However, despite the Royal family's enormous wealth and rich noblemen in the upper classes, the poor were extremely poor. Famine, poor hygiene and the lack of wages created an environment full of disease, crime and pestilence. If you were poor during this time, you had mighty little to look forward to! Some would visit the theatre as a means to escape their lives if they could afford it, but they would only be able to afford standing room. Imagine standing up through an hour long play! Other entertainment available to the poor included watching executions, tormenting those placed in stocks and attending witch trials. A pretty grim past-time, but there was little else to do,

A Midsummer Night's Dream is still one of Shakespeare's most popular plays. Most historians believe that the play was written between the years 1590 and 1956, when it debuted on stage. It was performed secretly during the Puritan period that criticized and shut down plays rulers did not like at festivals and fairs. Once it was performed on main stages again, it did not gather many compliments due to its farcical and exaggerated style. Many thought it was a play best suited to being read on paper, rather than being performed on stage. This is due in part to the darned little character development and the sudden new direction for the play once the Mechanicals perform. Even Samuel Pepys, a famous member of Parliament at the time, called it a ridiculous play.

Usually, Shakespeare liked to touch on a specific source for his plays, but A Midsummer Night's Dream appears to be strangely without one. Despite this, the play references many texts, including his own Romeo & Juliet, and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

Despite criticisms that some have had, A Midsummer Night's Dream is still well loved and continues to be tweaked and adapted and performed. In the more modern world, the play has been adapted into ballet performances, musicals, films and has inspired many more fictional works. Its blend of the comic and fantasy are strong draws for many artists, especially those that have embellished and adapted the fairy world to enhance Shakespeare's work into a feast for the eyes!