where was a midsummer night's dream written
A Midsummer Night's Dream 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.[1] 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.[2]
Helena (A Midsummer Night's Dream) Though Demetrius is deliberately cruel towards her, Helena remains intent in her devotion. Her ardor catches the attention of Oberon, who commands that Puck enchant Demetrius so that he will fall back in love with Helena. When Puck mistakenly enchants a sleeping Lysander instead, Lysander wakes and falls instantly in love with Helena. He pursues a shocked and hurt Helena, deserting a sleeping Hermia. Oberon, trying to correct Puck's error, then puts the potion on Demetrius. Confused by the two men's change in behaviour, Helena concludes that the other three lovers have banded together to ridicule her. Helena is left confused and hurt by how cruel and unkind her closest friend and her two suitors have become. In the scene's climax, she and Hermia nearly come to blows while the two men set out to kill one another to prove who is more worthy of Helena's affections.