Midsummer Night's Dream

a comedy by Shakespeare acted in 1595 and printed in 1600. The date of its composition is uncertain, although it is probable that it was among Shakespeare's first productions. The plot is largely the poet's own, although the interlude of Pyramus and Thisbe is a travesty of an ancient tale told by the poet Ovid and by Chaucer in his Legende of Goode Women.

The Midsummer Night's Dream, when acted, is converted from a delightful fiction into a dull pantomime. . . . Fancy cannot be embodied any more than a simile can be painted; and it is as idle to attempt it as to personate Wall or Moonshine. Fairies are not incredible, but fairies six feet high are so. Monsters are not shocking if they are seen at a proper distance. When ghosts appear at midday, when apparitions stalk along Cheapside, then may the Midsummer Night's Dream be represented without injury at Covent Garden or at Drury Lane. The boards of a theater and the regions of fancy are not the same thing.--Hazlitt.