A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM IS A COMEDY PLAY BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN BETWEEN 1590 AND 1596. IT PORTRAYS THE EVENTS SURROUNDING THE MARRIAGE OF THE DUKE OF ATHENS, THESEUS, AND HIPPOLYTA. THESE INCLUDE THE ADVENTURES OF FOUR YOUNG ATHENIAN LOVERS AND A GROUP OF SIX AMATEUR ACTORS (MECHANICALS), WHO ARE CONTROLLED AND MANIPULATED BY THE FAIRIES WHO INHABIT THE FOREST IN WHICH MOST OF THE PLAY IS SET. THE PLAY IS ONE OF SHAKESPEARE'S MOST POPULAR WORKS FOR THE STAGE AND IS WIDELY PERFORMED ACROSS THE WORLD. A Midsummer Night's Dream act IV, scene I. Engraving from a painting by Henry Fuseli, published 1796. It is unknown exactly when A Midsummer Night's Dream was written or first performed, but on the basis of topical references and an allusion to Edmund Spenser's Epithalamion, it is usually dated 1595 or early 1596. Some have theorised that the play might have been written for an aristocratic wedding (for example that of Elizabeth Carey, Lady Berkeley), while others suggest that it was written for the Queen to celebrate the feast day of St. John, but no evidence exists to support this theory. In any case, it would have been performed at The Theatre and, later, The Globe. Though it is not a translation or adaptation of an earlier work, various sources such as Ovid's Metamorphoses and Chaucer's "The Knight's Tale" served as inspiration. According to John Twyning, the play's plot of four lovers undergoing a trial in the woods was intended as a "riff" on Der Busant, a Middle High German poem. About the autor William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor. He was born on 26 April 1564 in Stratford-upon-Avon. His father was a successful local businessman and his mother was the daughter of a landowner. Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and nicknamed the Bard of Avon. He wrote about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, of which the authorship of some is uncertain. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. Notable Shakespeare works includes: COMEDIES All's Well That Ends Well As You Like It Comedy of Errors Love's Labour's Lost Measure for Measure Merchant of Venice Merry Wives of Windsor Midsummer Night's Dream Much Ado about Nothing Taming of the Shrew Tempest Twelfth Night Two Gentlemen of Verona Winter's Tale HISTORIES Henry IV, Part I Henry IV, Part II Henry V Henry VI, Part I Henry VI, Part II Henry VI, Part III Henry VIII King John Pericles Richard II Richard III TRAGEDIES Antony and Cleopatra Coriolanus Cymbeline Hamlet Julius Caesar King Lear Macbeth Othello Romeo and Juliet Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus Troilus and Cressida