From The Library of Literary Criticism of English and American Authors, ed. Charles Wells Moulton, 8 vols. (London: Moulton Publishing, 1901), 1: 468-70.
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
1590-1600.
A | Misommer nights | dreame. | As it hath beene sundry times pub | lickely acted, by the Right honoura | ble, the Lord Chamberlaine his | seruants. | Written by William Shakespeare. | Imprinted at London, for Thomas Fisher, and are to | be soulde at his shoppe, at the Signe of the White Hart, | in Fleetestreete. 1600. -- TITLE PAGE OF THE FIRST EDITION, 1600.
I say, as it is applausfully written, and commended to posterity, in the Midsummer-Night's Dream: -- and if we offend, it is with our good will: we came with no intent but to offend, and show our simple skill. -- TAYLOR, JOHN, Sir Gregory Nonsense, vol. I.
There let Hymen oft appear
In saffron robe, with taper clear,
And pomp, and feast, and revelry,
With mask and antique pageantry;
Such sights as youthful Poets dream
On summer eves by haunted stream.
....................................
Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child,
Warble his native wood-notes wild.
-- MILTON, JOHN, 1633, L'Allegro
September 29. -- To the King's Theatre, where we saw "Midsummer Night's Dream," which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life. -- PEPYS, SAMUEL, 1662, Diary and Correspondence.
The Comical part of this Play, is printed separately in 4º and is used to be acted at Bartholomew Fair, and other Markets in the Country by Strollers, under the title of "Bottom the Weaver." -- LANGBAINE, GERARD, 1691, An Account of the English Dramatick Poets, p. 460.
Wild and fantastical as this play is, all the parts in their various modes are well written, and give the kind of pleasure which the author designed. Fairies in his time were much in fashion; common tradition made them familiar, and Spenser's poem had made them great. -- JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1768, General Observations on Shakespeare's Plays.
It is astonishing that Shakespeare should be considered, not only by foreigners, but by many of our own critics, as a gloomy and heavy writer, who painted nothing but "gorgons and hydras, and chimeras dire." His subtlety exceeds that of all other dramatic writers, insomuch that a celebrated person of the present day said that he regarded him rather as a metaphysician than a poet. His delicacy and sportive gaiety are infinite. In the "Midsummer Night's Dream" alone, we should imagine, there is more sweetness and beauty of description than in the whole range of French poetry put together. What we mean is this, that we will produce out of that single play ten passages, to which we do not think any ten passages in the works of the French poets can be opposed, displaying equal fancy and imagery. -- HAZLITT, WILLIAM, 1817-69, Characters of Shakespeare's Plays, p. 92.
It is, indeed, a fabric of the most buoyant and aerial texture, floating as it were between earth and heaven, and tinted with all the magic colouring of the rainbow.
"The earth hath bubbles as the water has,
And this is of them."
. . . . The canvas, it is true, which he has stretched, has been since expanded, and new groupes have been introduced; but the outline and the mode of colouring which he employed have been invariably followed. It is, in short, to his picture of the fairy world, that we are indebted for the "Nymphidia" of Drayton; the "Robin Goodfellow" of Jonson; the miniatures of Fletcher and Browne; the full-length portraits of Herrick; the sly allusions of Corbet, and the spirited and picturesque sketches of Milton. -- DRAKE, NATHAN, 1817, Shakespeare and His Times, vol. II, p. 299, 353.
It evidently belongs to the earlier period of Shakespeare's genius; poetical, as we account it, more than dramatic; yet yet rather so because the indescribable profusion of imaginative poetry in this play overpowers our senses till we can hardly observe anything else, than from any deficiency of dramatic excellence. For in reality the structure of the fable, consisting as it does of three if not four actions, very distinct in their subjects and personages, yet wrought into each other without effort or confusion, displays the skill, or rather instinctive felicity, of Shakespeare, as much as in any play he has written. . . . . The "Midsummer Night's Dream" is, I believe, altogether original in one of the most beautiful conceptions that ever visited the mind of a poet, -- the fairy machinery. -- HALLAM, HENRY, 1837-39, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, vol. II, pt. ii, ch. vi, par. 39, 40.
Of all his works, the "Midsummer Night's Dream" leaves the strongest impression on my mind, that this miserable world must have, for once at least, contained a happy man. This play is so purely delicious, so little intermixed with the painful passions from which poetry distils her sterner sweets, so fragrant with hilarity so bland and yet so bold, that I cannot imagine Shakspeare's mind to have been in any other frame than that of healthful ecstasy when the sparks of inspiration thrilled through his brain in composing it. -- CAMPBELL, THOMAS, 1818, ed. Shakespeare's Plays, Moxon ed., Life.
This is, in several respects, the most remarkable composition of its author, and has probably contributed more to his general fame, as it has given a more peculiar evidence of the variety and brilliancy of his genius, than any other of his dramas. Not that it is in itself the noblest of his works, or even one of the highest order among them; but it is not only exquisite in its kind -- it is also original and peculiar in its whole character, and of a class by itself. -- VERPLANCK, GULIAN CROMMELIN, 1844-47, ed. The Illustrated Shakespeare, vol. II.
Bottom the weaver is the representative of the whole human race. His confidence in his own power is equally profound, whether he exclaims, "Let me play the lion too;" or whether he sings alone, "that they shall hear I am not afraid," or whether, conscious that he is surrounded with spirits, he cries out, with his voice of authority, "Where's Peas-blossom?" In every situation Bottom is the same, -- the same personification of that self-love which the simple cannot conceal, and the wise can with difficulty suppress. -- KNIGHT, CHARLES. 1849, Studies of Shakspere, bk. v, ch. ii, p. 209.
I know not any play of Shakespeare's in which the language is so uniformly unexceptionable as this. It is all poetry, and sweeter poetry was never written. -- COLERIDGE, HARTLEY, 1849-51, Essays and Marginalia, vol. II, p. 138.
What a rich set of fellows those "mechanicals" are! and how individual are their several characteristics! Bully Bottom, the epitome of all the conceited donkeys that ever strutted and straddled on this stage of the world. . . . He is a choice arabesque impersonation of that colouring of conceit which, by the half-malice of the world, has been said to tinge the disposition of actors, as invariably as the rouge does their cheeks. Peter Quince, although the delegated manager of the company, fades into a shadow, a cipher, a nonentity before him. -- CLARKE, CHARLES COWDEN, 1863, Shakespeare-Characters, p. 97.
"The Midsummer-Night's Dream" is especially remarkable for its beauty as a composition. The theme throughout is treated with care as well as felicity. In structure, in diction, in characterization and poetical elegance, it is, we may boldly say, faultless. Nor is it less fitted for the stage than for the closet. However it may be acted, whether as a ballet with a favourite cantatrice in the part of Oberon, or otherwise as a Scandinavian legend with the faery monarch properly bearded, its histrionic representation is always charming. Its execution is as exquisite as its concept on is delicate. -- HERALD, JOHN A., 1865, Shakspere, His Inner Life as Intimated in His Works, p. 186.
In "A Midsummer Night's Dream" attains to a consummation which it had never before reached, either in our own, or in any other, dramatic literature. English romantic comedy, in a word, was now represented by an example, not of sudden (for nothing is sudden in literature), but of radiant perfection. -- WARD, ADOLPHUS WILLIAM, 1875-99, A History of English Dramatic Literature, vol. II, p. 273.
In which some of his most delicate and sprightly verses have revelled. The whole play expresses humour on a revel, and brings into one human feeling the super-nature, the caprice and gross mischance, the serious drift of life. -- WEISS, JOHN, 1876, Wit, Humor, and Shakspeare.
Here each kind of excellence is equal throughout; there are here no purple patches on a gown of serge, but one seamless and imperial robe of a single dye. Of the lyric or the prosaic part, the counterchange of loves and laughters, of fancy fine as air and imagination high as heaven what need can there be for any one to shame himself by the helpless attempt to say some word not utterly unworthy? Let it suffice us to accept this poem as the landmark of our first stage, and pause to look back from it on what lies behind us of partial or of perfect work. -- SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES, 1880, A Study of Shakespeare, p. 49.
In no other of his works has Shakespeare more brilliantly shown that complete dominance of theme which is manifested in the perfect preservation of proportion. The strands of action are braided with astonishing grace. The fourfold story is never allowed to lapse into dulness or obscurity. There is caprice, but, no distortion. The supernatural machinery is never wrested toward the production of startling or monstrous effects, but it deftly impels each mortal personage in the natural line of human development. The dream-spirit is maintained throughout, and perhaps it is for this reason, -- that the poet was living and thinking and writing in the free, untrammelled world of his own spacious and airy imagination, and not in any definite sphere of this earth, that "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is so radically superior to the other comedies written by him at about this period. -- WINTER, WILLIAM, 1888, Augustin Daly's Arrangement for Representation, Preface, p. 12.
Here he gave his fancy the reins, and showed, as he created Titania and Oberon and then, again, a Bottom, that nothing in the broad domain of poesy was to him impossible or unattainable. The moral maturity of the poet appears, however, most strikingly in the figure of Theseus with his manly character, his delicacy of feeling, and his broad humanity. -- TEN BRINK, BERNHARD, 1892-95, Five Lectures on Shakespeare, tr. Franklin, p. 78.
Enthralled by Shakespeare's art, and submissive to it, we accept without question every stroke of time's thievish progress, be it fast or slow; and, at the close, acknowledge that the promise of the opening lines has been redeemed. But if, in spite of all our best endeavours, our feeble wits refuse to follow him, Shakespeare smiles gently and benignantly as the curtain falls, and begging us to take no offence at shadows, bids us think it all as no more yielding than a dream. -- FURNESS HORACE HOWARD, 1895, New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare, A Midsommer Nights Dreame, Preface, p. xxxiv.
His first masterpiece is a masterpiece of grace, both lyrical and comic. . . . How is one to speak adequately of "A Midsummer Night's Dream?" It is idle to dwell upon the slightness of the character-drawing, for the poet's effort is not after characterization; and, whatever its weak points, the poem as a whole is one of the tenderest, most original, and most perfect Shakespeare ever produced. It is Spenser's fairy-poetry developed and condensed; it is Shelley's spirit-poetry anticipated by more than two centuries. And the airy dream is shot with whimsical parody. The frontiers of Elf-land and town-land meet and mingle. -- BRANDES, GEORGE, 1898, William Shakespeare, A Critical Study, vol. I. p. 76.
Shakespeare's joy in the possession of the poetic gift, and his earliest delight in life, found radiant expression in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," a masterpiece of poetic fancy, and the gayest and most beautiful of poetic comedies. Rich as this drama is in humorous effects it is so essentially lyrical in spirit that it stands alone in English poetry, an exquisite expansion of the masque or festival poem into a drama of pure fancy and daring imagination. -- MABIE, HAMILTON WRIGHT, 1900, William Shakespeare, Poet, Dramatist, and Man, p. 203.
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