A Midsummer Night’s Dream, written by William Shakespeare in 1595, is considered to be one of his most popular comedies. The play is based on the ancient Greek comedy play of the same title by Aristophanes.
William Shakespeare was inspired to write A Midsummer Night’s Dream due to numerous influences. It is thought that the dream sequences in the play were partly inspired by stories from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which speaks about shifting identities and dreamlike states.
Additionally, scholars speculate that Shakespeare was influenced by dreamlike elements from works of playwright Plautus, who used dream symbolism to emphasize themes in his writings. This would have made a strong impression on young William, who went on to incorporate dream-like elements throughout A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a way of emphasizing its characters and themes. Ultimately, it is quite clear that this dreamy fantasy of Shakespeare had many inspirations.
Shakespeare may have also been inspired by his own experiences as well as those of his friends and family when writing this play. He used many real-life situations to create his characters, who are based on real people with whom he had interacted with or knew about through others’ experiences.
By the way, the play is set in Athens, Greece during ancient times when gods and goddesses walked among mortals. These supernatural beings often interfered with human affairs, but they were not all-powerful or all-knowing like our modern-day gods are portrayed as being today. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Oberon (one of these gods) has an affair with Titania (another god), which leads to all sorts of problems that they must solve before their marriage can be restored and peace restored to the land once again.
