A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

SOURCES OF THE PLOT—While Shakespeare's under the name Alberon or Auberon into French use of his material in A Midsummer Night's Dream romance, where he appears, first in verse and then in is profoundly original, the threads interwoven in the prose, as "the king of fairyland," situated somewhere plot were already familiar to Elizabethan readers. in the far East. Lord Berners' English translation, Sir Thomas North's translation of Plutarch (first The Book of Duke Huon of Bordeaux, first printed published in 1579) mentions in the Life of Theseus about 1534, gave the fairy king the name of Oberon, the marriage of that hero with the Amazon Queen and doubtless formed the foundation of the play of Hippolyta and his love affairs with Perigouna, Huon of Bordeaux, acted in 1593-4, and now lost. Ægles, Ariadne, and Antiopa, referred to in II. i. Spenser connects Oberon's name with Huon's at the 78-80. Chaucer had made Duke Theseus a leading beginning of Book II of The Faerie Queene (1590) personage of his popular Knight's Tale, and had de- and the fairy king under the name of Auberon was scribed how on a hunting expedition on a May morn a character in an entertainment offered to Queen Theseus had found two lovers fighting for the hand Elizabeth at Elvetham in Hampshire in 1591. There of a fair lady. The names Ægeus, Lysander, and are contemporary references to other fairy plays, but Demetrius are found in Plutarch, and Philostrate is it is most likely that the suggestion came to Shakethe name assumed by Arcite in disguise in the speare by way of Lyly, whose device of mythological Knight's Tale. As Chaucer made Theseus a hero of compliment to Queen Elizabeth is used in A Midmedieval chivalry, Shakespeare made him an Eliza-summer Night's Dream, II. i. 155-164, and whose bethan nobleman, and his marriage is celebrated in presentation of The Woman in the Moone as "a poet's the Elizabethan manner, "with pomp, with triumph, dream" is recalled in the title of Shakespeare's play and with revelling," in which Bottom and his com- as well as in Puck's epilogue and other passages. panions, obviously Shakespeare's contemporaries, fall Spenser gave his fairy queen the name of Tanaquil into their appropriate places. The story of Pyramus or Gloriana, and identified her with Queen Elizabeth. and Thisbe, which forms the subject of their "very Shakespeare probably chose the name Titania because tragical mirth," was a commonplace of classical he liked it; it is a Latin adjective, meaning "titanmythology, to be found in Shakespeare's favorite born," applied by Ovid to Diana, who was identified Ovid, in Chaucer, and in many other authors. by Shakespeare's contemporaries with the queen of

The combination of these two groups of courtiers the fairies. Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, as he is inand clowns with the fairies was a master stroke of differently called in the play, belongs to native folkinvention, though some hint had been given for it in lore rather than to classical or romantic tradition. the introduction of fairies by Lyly in his classical Puck is a general term rather than a proper name. play Endymion (pr. 1591). Lyly's fairies dance and and it is to be noted that in the final speech of the sing, but they take a subordinate part in the plot play Robin describes himself as "the Puck"; Shakeand are not individualized. Oberon indeed had been speare doubtless used the word "Puck" in the stage mentioned by name as "King of Fayries" in Greene's directions to indicate Robin Goodfellow just as he Scottish History of James IV, but he serves merely used the word "Clown" to indicate Bottom. It is the as presenter of the play and stays outside of the same word as Devonshire "pixie" and Scottish action. This play was entered in the Stationers' "pauky," and has numerous analogues in European Registers for publication on May 14, 1594, and our languages signifying a sprite or hobgoblin. Robin earliest printed copy is dated 1598, but it must have Goodfellow was the familiar English name for a misbeen written before Greene's death in 1592, and it chievous but helpful fairy. Before Shakespeare, was probably acted about 1590. Oberon's literary several writers had put on record the popular beliefs genealogy is easily traced. He is the Alberich (elf- that Robin skimmed the cream from the milk bowls, king) whom we know in German mythology as the threw down the pewter dishes if they were not well guardian of the treasure of the Nibelungs, and passed scoured, pinched maids in their sleep that swept not

their houses clean, ground malt and mustard, swept some from Bottom and his companions for the houses at midnight for a mess of white bread and "Dance of Mechanics" in Love's Welcome: the King milk, danced in rounds in green meadows, and led and Queen's Entertainment at Bolsover (1634). In poor travelers out of their way notoriously. 1631 the ass's head became a political issue, and the DATE—All that is certainly known of the date of actor of Bottom's part was condemned to wear it A Midsummer Night's Dream is that it was in ex- publicly in the stocks at the gate of the Bishop of istence in 1598, when Francis Meres included it in Lincoln, who was accused by his Puritan enemies of his published list of six comedies and six tragedies having A Midsummer Night's Dream acted privately he ascribed to Shakespeare. A plausible conjecture in his own house on a Sunday evening. The Comhas connected Titania's description of the results of monwealth banished the fairies of A Midsummer her quarrel with Oberon (II. i. 88-117) with the ex- Night's Dream along with other superstitions, but the ceptionally bad weather which prevailed in England "humours" of Bottom the Weaver were still prein 1594; and it is to this or the following year that sented "by stealth, under pretence of rope-dancing the critics have been generally inclined to assign the or the like." Meanwhile Peter Quince and his felplay on grounds of versification, construction, char-lows had crossed the sea, no doubt in the repertory acterization, and the like. In its exuberant lyrical of the English traveling companies, and had given note, of which the abundance of rhyme is merely the the German dramatist Andreas Gryphius material technical expression, the comedy is most closely con- for a Schimpfspiel or Pasquinade entitled Absurda nected with Romeo and Juliet, and the two plays, in Comica oder Herr Peter Squentz, printed in 1663. subject as well as treatment, have more in common This may have been directly imitated from "The than appears at first sight. Both deal with star- Merry conceited Humours of Bottom the Weaver, as crossed lovers, and it can hardly be a mere coinci- it hath been often publikely acted by some of his dence that the "tedious brief scene of young Pyra- Majesties Comedians, and lately privately presented mus and his love Thisbe" treats the same theme in by several apprentices for their harmless recreation, burlesque. There are curious echoes from one play with great applause," which was published in 1661, to the other, as if Shakespeare had both in mind, or immediately after the Restoration of Charles II, was actually engaged in writing both, at the same along with other pieces of the same character, as an time. Lysander's lines (I. i. 134–149) are an admira- appropriate means of expressing "the general mirth ble setting forth of the subject of Romeo and Juliet, that is likely very suddenly to happen about the and Juliet uses the very same metaphor in the lines:

"Too like the lightning which doth cease to be Ere one can say, it lightens." Mercutio's famous Queen Mab speech suggests that Shakespeare's mind was still occupied with fairy pranks, and that the young poet could not resist the temptation to weave into the new product of his imagination a piece of the gorgeous web lying over from his last work.

King's Coronation." Next year Pepys saw the whole play, and his verdict on it is characteristic of the taste of the time:-"To the King's Theatre, where we saw 'Midsummer-Night's Dream,' which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid, ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life."

Thirty years later, in 1692, A Midsummer Night's Dream, under the title The Fairy Queen, began a long and variegated career as an opera. Purcell, the STAGE HISTORY-The varying fortunes of 4 greatest of English musicians, composed the instruMidsummer Night's Dream as a stage play cast curi- mental and vocal parts, there were elaborate dances, ous sidelights not only on the history of the theatre and the scenery and mechanical effects surpassed and the variations of public taste, but upon changes anything seen before. "The Court and Town were of national importance. Allusions by Shakespeare's wonderfully satisfied with it; but the expenses in setcontemporaries and successors show that the play was ting it out being so great, the company got very little exceedingly popular up to the time of the closing of by it." In the main, the action of the play is prethe theatres by the Puritans. The interlude of Pyra- served, but the interlude of Pyramus and Thisbe mus and Thisbe was imitated by the students of St. having been transferred to Act II, its place in Act John's College, Oxford, in a burlesque entitled Nar-V is taken by an elaborate masque, including a duet cissus, a Twelfth Night Merriment (1602); Ben between a Chinese and a "Chinese-woman" and a Jonson took some hints from the fairy scenes for dance by six monkeys. In other parts of the play The Masque of Oberon the Fairy Prince (1611) and additional attractions are introduced in the shape of

three drunken poets, the Indian boy, two great drag-ler's Wells, Islington, from 1844 to 1862. His proons, two swans who turn into fairies and dance, four duction of A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1853 was savages, a troop of fawns, dryads and naiads. also remarkable for the use of gas for the first time "Pyramus and Thisbe" was the title of "a comic as a stage illuminant and the introduction of a masque" presented in 1716, and of a "mock opera" diaphanous blue net, the same size as the act-drop, performed in 1745 at Covent Garden. David Gar- without a seam, to give a "misty effect" to the fairy rick was responsible for "The Fairies. An opera scenes. More recent productions have made further taken from A Midsummer Night's Dream. As it is advances in scenic illusion, for which the modern performed at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. developments of stage machinery, decoration, and The songs from Shakespeare, Milton, Waller, Dryden, lighting give ample opportunity. In the early nineLansdowne, Hammond, etc." (1755). In this version ties A Midsummer Night's Dream was one of the the “rude mechanicals" did not appear, and the play most successful plays in the repertory of F. R. Benunderwent further mutilation at the hands of Col- son's company, which acted at the Globe Theatre in man a few years later. For the next half century London, and made extensive tours in the English Shakespeare's comedy held the stage only in the guise provinces; a revival by Charles Calvert, at Manof a rude farce, from which "Theseus and all the chester, Eng., was also very successful. In 1901 serious characters" were omitted. F. Reynolds in Beerbohm Tree gave a splendid performance in Lon1816 claimed the credit of "restoring to the stage the don with himself as Bottom and Lottie Freear as lost, the divine drama of A Midsummer Night's Puck, and he repeated the triumph ten years later Dream" for a performance at the Theatre Royal, with Arthur Bourchier in the great comic part, Puck Covent Garden; but his version is still very far from being taken less successfully by a boy actor. Anfollowing the original. Passages are transposed, other notable English Bottom of recent years was omitted, inserted, new songs are introduced together Oscar Ashe. Granville Barker's production at the with a dance during which the Indian Boy is brought Savoy in 1914 was a triumph of gorgeous decorativeforward, and the play closes with a recitative by ness-fairies all gold against a background of green Hermia, "Warriors! March on! March on!", fol- and purple with Puck as a single patch of scarlet. lowed by a grand pageant commemorative of the This remained unrivalled until Christmas, 1925, when triumphs of Theseus and the chorus: "His fame Basil Dean put on a "radiantly beautiful" setting -Proclaim-And sound-Around-Great Theseus' at Drury Lane, with dances by Fokine to Mendelssohn's music. The open air performances of Ben Greet's company were long familiar to college students on both sides of the Atlantic.

Name!"

Modern revivals must date from the performance of Tieck's Sommernachts-traum at the Berlin Royal Theatre in 1827 in the presence of King Frederic The first performance of A Midsummer Night's William IV and all the notabilities of the Prussian Dream in America took place at the Park Theatre, capital. Mendelssohn conducted the orchestra and New York, in 1826; it was revived at the same theatre his overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream was in 1841 with Charlotte Cushman as Oberon. William performed for the first time. Shakespeare finally E. Burton achieved a triumph in the character of came to his own again on the English stage soon Bottom in a magnificent setting at his New York after the middle of the nineteenth century. In 1856 Theatre in 1854, and at the same time a rival repreCharles Kean revived the play in its original form sentation of the comedy was given at the Broadway at the Princess Theatre in London. The part of Puck Theatre. A revival at Laura Keene's New York was assigned to "a blond roguish girl about ten years theatre in 1859, with William Rufus Blake as Botold, who under the name of Ellen Terry was tom, was a failure; but Joseph Jefferson's production to be a favorite interpreter of Shakespearean parts at the same theatre (then called the Olympic) ran to English-speaking audiences for half a century. for a hundred nights in 1867-8. J. L. Fox gave a Bottom was played by Harley, one of the leading famous portrayal of Bottom and repeated it in Auromic actors of the day, whose last words on his gustin Daly's production at the Grand Opera House, death-bed a few years later were a quotation from New York, in 1873. Daly's Theatre, New York, saw this part, "I have an exposition of sleep come upon a revival of unprecedented splendor in 1888. Little me." Bottom was esteemed the greatest comic char- of the original text was omitted, but there were some acter of Phelps, who conducted a notable series of transpositions for the sake of stage effects, the most Shakespearean revivals at the little theatre at Sad-noteworthy being the gathering of fairies with glim

mering fireflies at the close of Act III, and the the first half of the nineteenth century, before the

voyage of the barge of Theseus to Athens from the wood at the end of Act IV. The Astor Theatre in New York opened with A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1906 (Annie Russell as Puck) but the setting was adjudged less magnificent than that of eighteen years earlier. Open air performances were given at Llewellyn Park, West Orange, N. J., under the direction of Mrs. C. C. Goodrich, in 1916, and at Hollywood Bowl, California, before 8,000 spectators, with a notable cast, in 1922. Representations in New York by High School girls in 1914 and by marionettes in 1920 show the play's lasting appeal to youth.

period of the modern revivals. Edgar Allan Poe wrote: "When I am asked for a definition of poetry, I think of Titania and Oberon of the Midsummer Night's Dream." Hartley Coleridge said: "It is all poetry, and sweeter poetry was never written." All recent editors are enthusiastic in their admiration.

German appreciation dates from the translation by Wieland in 1762. Tieck in his notes on Schlegel's translation started the notion that the play was written in imitation of masque and anti-masque for the wedding of some nobleman, and this idea was afterwards elaborately developed by Elze, despite the fact that at the time the play was written the anti-masque A Midsummer Night's Dream is a favorite play was unknown, and the masque was merely a dance with German audiences, and the setting by Max in costume, without any dramatic elements. Simrock Reinhardt in Berlin in 1905 is still remembered, in Shakespeare's Sources dived deep into fairy myththough an attempt at Düsseldorf in 1911 to outvieology. On the whole, German criticism has conit perhaps holds the record for general gorgeousnesstributed less to the elucidation of A Midsummer and ingenious stage effects. There were competing Night's Dream than to that of almost any other revivals-one by Max Reinhardt—at Vienna in 1925. Shakespearean play. The play has been translated into all the principal European languages and is often acted.

TEXT-The text of this issue is founded on that of the collected edition of Shakespeare's plays published with the authority of his friends and fellow actors Heming and Condell in 1623, seven years after his death, and subsequently known as the First Folio. They appear to have given to the printers a stage copy of an edition of the play which had been published not long before with the title: "A Midsommer nights dreame. As it hath been sundry times publikely acted, by the Right Honourable, the Lord Chamberlaine his servants. Written by William Shakespeare. Printed by James Roberts, 1600." Recent investigation tends to show that this date of 1600 was intended to mislead, this edition being really

CRITICAL COMMENT-Dr. Johnson remarked, "I know not why Shakespeare calls this play 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' when he so carefully informs us that it happened on the night preceding May day;"—to which the obvious answer is that the poet may imagine events as happening at another season than that which he conceives as suitable for the dream itself to occur. Dr. Johnson further objected to the combination of "the loves of Theseus and Hippolyta with the gothic mythology of fairies" as an example of Shakespeare's practice of giving "to one age or nation, without scruple, the customs, institutions, and opinions of another, at the expense not only of like-issued in 1619; it was obviously reprinted from an lihood, but of possibility." But, on the whole, the earlier edition of 1600, printed for Thomas Fisher, judgment of the great eighteenth century critic was who obtained a license for its publication on Oct. favorable. "Wild and fantastical as this play is, all 8 of that year from the Stationers' Company. The the parts in their various modes are well written, and two quartos show some slight differences from the give the kind of pleasure which the author designed." folio text, and are sometimes more correct; important The critics of the Romantic Movement naturally ap- variations from the first folio adopted in this issue proached the play with less condescension and more on the authority of the quartos or suggested by later enthusiasm. Hazlitt (Characters of Shakespeare's editors are recorded in the Notes at the end of the Plays, 1817) carefully analyzes the personal charac-play, Q, signifying the Fisher quarto, and Q. that of teristics of Bottom and his companions, commends the Roberts; F indicates the reading of the first folio: infinite delicacy and subtlety of the portrayal of the the later folios are reprints of the first, and their fairies, and draws attention to the various beauty of mistakes and corrections are alike disregarded. For the lyrics and the blank verse. In his opinion "all the sake of convenience in reference, the Globe numthat is finest in the play is lost in the representation," bering of lines is retained. and this appears to have been the common view in

C.