A Comparison of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet

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Various parallels in Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream tend to support the theory

that the two plays are closely related. It is the purpose of this paper to

show that wherever parallels exist, the relationship is probably from

A Midsummer Night's Dream to Romeo and Juliet. A close analysis

of the spirit of the two plays, and of the different attitudes towards love

and life that they present, leads us to the conclusion that A Midsummer

Night's Dream is the natural reaction of Shakespeare's mind from Romeo and Juliet.

It will be unnecessary in this paper to present all the evidence

bearing on the dates of composition of the two plays. There can be

little doubt that the first version of Romeo and Juliet

appeared about 1591. The date of the first version of the

Dream is more problematical. The only bit of external evidence

is the mention of the play in Francis Meres's2 Palladis

Tamiain 1598, but the strongest bit of internal evidence-the

supposed reference to the death of Robert Greene, in Act v, I,

52-3:

The thrice three Muses mourning for the death

Of Learning, late deceased in beggary--

would fix the date at 1592-3.

Assuming, then, that the Dream was written soon, perhaps

immediately, after Romeo and Juliet, let us see if a

comparative study of the two plays will not support our

hypothesis.

Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth,

Turn melancholy forth to funerals

says Theseus in the first scene of the Dream, and later in the

first scene of Act v:

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,

Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend

More than cool reason ever comprehends.

The lunatic, the lover, and the poet

Are of imagination all compact

These two speeches of Theseus, to whom Shakespeare has given much of

his own clear-eyed serenity and benignity, are, it seems to me,

significant manifestations of the poet's own mental attitude when he

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