A MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM

Ix 1600 two quarto editions of A Midsummer-Night's Dream appeared. The earlier, printed for Thomas Fisher, seems to have been taken from an authentic manuscript, and on it the present text is based. The later, printed by James Roberts, follows the earlier with few changes beyond the addition of some stage directions. The text of the play in the First Folio appears to Lave been printed from a prompter's copy of Roberts's Quarto. The chief differences are in the ivision into acts, not hitherto marked, and in the presence of yet more detailed stage directions. The only piece of external evidence of the existence of the play before 1600 is the mention of Meres in 1598. Attempts to date it more exactly are based chiefly on very slight probabilThe supposed borrowing of II. i. 2, 3 from the sixth book of The Faerie Queene, and the posallusion in v. i. 52 to Spenser's Teares of the Muses are of no real assistance. Slightly more aas.ble is the theory that Titania's description of the inverted seasons in m. i. 88-114 derived from the violent storms which afflicted England in 1594, and was perhaps suggested by . It is hard to believe that the fear of the clowns lest the lion should frighten the ladies eded the hint of an actual incident occurring at a spectacle at the Scottish court in 1594, when 1 Moor was substituted for a lion lest the spectators should be disturbed. So far as these very zat indications go, they point to 1594-95. The impression one receives of the stage of maturity ed in the style, characterization, and construction of the play, and the evidence from the ter fit this date; and most modern scholars incline to accept it.

Certain marked peculiarities of A Midsummer-Night's Dream indicate that it was not written arly for the public stage. The prominence of the marriage of Theseus in the setting, the general masque-like character of the whole, with its abundance of lyric, dance, and spectacle, and virtual epithalamium with which it closes, all suggest that it was originally devised for some n's wedding. The open flattery of Elizabeth in I. i. 157-164, and the praise of chastity | a:174, 75, point further to the actual presence of the Queen. The most suitable occasion so far grested is the marriage of the Earl of Derby to Elizabeth Vere, which took place at the Cat Greenwich in 1594.

No original for the main plot has been found. The most obvious sources whence Shakespeare Bu have derived information about Theseus are Chaucer's Knight's Tale and North's translation Fatarch's Life of Theseus. From the former he might have got the idea of the marriage festies of Theseus, the May-Day observances, the hunting scene, the name of Philostrate, and minor details. From the latter he might have taken a few proper names, and allusions to ** previous adventures of Theseus in love and war.

The story of Pyramus and Thisbe was accessible to him in Ovid's Metamorphoses, in Golding's lation of the same, in Chaucer's Legend of Good Women, and in various later forms. A loveon with an effect somewhat similar to that of the love-juice of Oberon plays a part in the bana Enamorada of Montemayor, from which the dramatist had taken part of the plot of The Gentlemen of Verona.

The fairy-lore is based mainly on popular tradition. Titania is one of Ovid's names for Diana. *** had appeared in medieval romances such as Huon of Bordeaux, in Greene's James IV, - Tie Faerie Queene, and elsewhere. Robin Goodfellow was a familiar figure in folk-lore, and had ady made his way into books. But Shakespeare worked on these figures, and on the fairy*** in general, a transformation into something all his own; and in so doing permanently ed this whole field of popular fancy. There is perhaps no one achievement of his genius a has had so pervasive an effect as his treatment of fairies in the present play and in Merspeech on Queen Mab, in Romeo and Juliet.