A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Sonnets

A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Sonnets by William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy written by William Shakespeare c. 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One subplot involves a conflict between four Athenian lovers. Another follows a group of six amateur actors rehearsing the play which they are to perform before the wedding. Both groups find themselves in a forest inhabited by fairies who manipulate the humans and are engaged in their own domestic intrigue. The play is one of Shakespeare's most popular and is widely performed.

Shakespeare's sonnets are poems written by William Shakespeare on a variety of themes. When discussing or referring to Shakespeare's sonnets, it is almost always a reference to the 154 sonnets that were first published all together in a quarto in 1609. However, there are six additional sonnets that Shakespeare wrote and included in the plays Romeo and Juliet, Henry V and Love's Labour's Lost. There is also a partial sonnet found in the play Edward III. (wikipedia.org)

At the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, Peter Holland is the McMeel Family Professor of Shakespeare Studies. He was President of the Shakespeare Association of America (2007-8) and Director of the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon (1997-2002).