A Midsummer Night’s Dream Background

Genre: Play

A Midsummer Night’s Dream was written during the Elizabethan Era (1558–1603), which is considered by many historians to be the golden age of England. The era is named after Queen Elizabeth I, and the period was marked by peace and prosperity in England. In particular, the period saw arts flourish to a great extent. The play can be categorized as a comedy, where the central couples face hurdles typical of Shakespearian comedy: parental condemnation and misplaced love. Tragedies tend to focus more on a character’s emotions to bring out the devastation and tragic downfall of the character. However, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, like other comedies, Shakespeare focuses on the characters’ efforts to escape the testing situations they find themselves in.

It is not known when exactly Shakespeare wrote the play, but on the basis of other sources, especially Edmund Spenser’s Epithalamion, it has been estimated that it could have been written in 1595 or early 1596. Some theorists believe that the play was written for an upper-class wedding, whereas others argue that the play was written to entertain the Queen on the of St. John’s Day. The play draws inspiration from various sources, such as Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Chaucer’s “The Knight’s Tale.”