A Midsummer Night’s Dream must contain the most culturally and chronologically diverse characters in fiction. “The musical discord holds together four different modes of representation: Theseus and Hippolyta, from classical legend; the four young lovers, from every place and every time; Bottom and his fellow English rustics; the fairies, who in themselves are madly eclectic. Titania is Ovid’s alternate name for Diana, while Oberon comes out of Celtic romance, and Puck or Robin Goodfellow is English folklore” (Bloom 166). These characters are unaware of one another at the opening of the play, but soon become involved in the plots of others. Shakespeare could not possibly write a play interweaving such diverse characters and not have anachronisms throughout the work. What makes Dream one of the greatest plays ever written is Shakespeare’s ability to make these anachronisms seem unimportant. How did he manage this theatrical feat? What inspired him to write Dream, one of the three plays out of thirty-nine (the other two are The Tempest and Love’s Labor Lost) in which Shakespeare does not use a primary source?
According to Bullfinch’s Age of Fable, Theseus quietly wed Hippolyta and left her after the birth of their son Hippolytus. Theseus later had a public wedding in Athens, to Phaedra. Hippolyta and her Amazons crashed the wedding to kill the entire wedding party, but Hippolyta was killed in that battle. That might help explain why Hippolyta’s lines can be read to imply hostility or eagerness: “Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;/Four nights will quickly dream away the time”(1.1:7-9). To further complicate matters, Titania is a synonym for Diana, the Roman name for Artemis, goddess of the Moon, the Hunt, and patron goddess of the Amazons. As Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta would have also been her High Priestess. If Titania had grounds for jealousy, it would mean that the Amazon Queen had dared to touch the consort of her patron goddess. Any affair Titania had with Theseus would have had to happen before Oberon was born, as he is the offspring of Julius Caesar and Morgan le Fay. Would they care, these theatergoers, that most of the histories of the characters contradicted each other?
Part of his success is no doubt due to the obscurity of some of the details. Theseus tells Hermia “”if you yield not to your father’s choice,/You can endure the livery of a nun,/For aye to be in shady cloister mewed”(1.1:71-73).Who would know that cloisters were unheard of in an Athens that predated Roman rule and Christianity? Shakespeare concentrated on universal constants to hold the loyalty of his audience. Theatergoers knew (or could imagine) the pain of unrequited love, as well as the thrill of forbidden love. They could also relate to the fear and confusion felt by the rude mechanicals, even as they laughed at Bottom’s predicament. Shakespeare also took care to craft short, fast-paced scenes, shifting from one pair or set of character to another pair of set before the audience would have time to notice any contradictions.
Shakespeare spent a lifetime honing his craft by watching audiences and giving them what they craved. Scholars must speculate as to his motives and interior landscape; he did not leave behind written records of his thoughts. The timing of certain events and successive plays can certainly invite speculation as to the origin and inspiration of William Shakespeare’s works. In the first chapter of the Pulitzer Prize finalist text Will in the World, Shakespearean scholar Stephen Greenblatt notes the similarities between elements a series of performances commissioned by Leicester for Queen Elizabeth and elements in Dream. The obvious connection is the description of a platform Leicester built for Queen Elizabeth to view the leap of a mechanical dolphin, later referenced in Dream: “Thou rememb’rest/Since once I sat upon a promontory,/And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back”(2.1:148-150). Shakespeare watched the queen watching the performances, a mixture of classical poetry and rustic folktales, with slapstick comedies and dancing. It was a mass confusion, not allowing complete concentration on any one part; at one point, several acts physically collided. Everyone was surprised when Elizabeth requested a repeat performance. The second performance was smoother, well received by the audience, which included representatives from most walks of life. Shakespeare learned that a successful performance must include something for everyone.
Philip Henslowe, a theatrical agent/owner and contemporary of Shakespeare, kept meticulous records of theatrical performances. In his diary, he notes the performance of a play, Huon of Burdocize, on December 28, 1593. This play was based on the story of Huon of Bordeaux, recounted in the Legends of Charlemagne collected by Thomas Bullfinch. Huon, a knight who inadvertently killed the eldest son of Charlemange, meets the Faerie King Oberon while riding through the woods on a quest. Oberon, the first fairy godfather, takes an interest in Huon, gives him gifts and valuable advice. (In this tale, Oberon is portrayed as the son of Julius Caesar and Morgan le Fay.) Oberon even brings Huon to Avalon and abdicates in his favor, declaring him ruler over the ‘faerie folk’. Faeries rarely give birth, so the issue of succession is often settled by adoption. King Arthur objects, as he believes that if any human should rule Avalon, it should be Arthur; Huon offers to be co-ruler, thus restoring the peace. Oberon retracts his threats to turn Arthur into a werewolf and allows the co-rulership to stand. Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer Night’s Dream within three years of the opening of Huon.
Shakespeare knew classical gods and heroes held a timeless appeal. In his day, classical and medieval morality plays were often recycled. He understood the power of folk tales, something he would have seen at least four times per year in Stratford, never diminished by repetition. Puck, a figure straight out of English folklore, would be an alluring character to English audiences. He understood the widespread appeal of physical comedy. The rude mechanicals and their play-within-a-play would hold the attention of the groundlings. He knew that there must be at least one character who speaks for the audience, in plain language; Bottom serves that purpose in Dream. He may well have learned from the performance of Huon that an audience would ignore or forgive anachronistic flaws if the story was sufficiently entertaining. Shakespeare succeeded in crafting a plot so compelling that it not only made the flaws irrelevant, it inspired poets and writers for more than four hundred years.
Works Consulted
Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare – The Invention of the Human. Berkley Publishing Group, New York, 1998.
Bullfinch, Thomas. Age of Fable. World Publishing Company, 1965.
Bullfinch, Thomas. Age of Chivalry and Legends of Charlemagne. World Publishing Company, 1965.
Greenblatt, Stephen, et. al. The Norton Shakespeare Based on the Oxford Edition. New York: Norton, 1997.
Greenblatt, Stephen. Will in the World. W.W. Norton and Company, New York, 2004.
