A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream (c.1595-96) is one of Shakespeare's most beloved comedies. Set partly in the court of Athens and partly in a magical forest nearby, the play weaves together four interlocking plots: the royal marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta; the tangled love affairs of four young Athenians (Hermia, Lysander, Helena and Demetrius); the quarrel between the fairy king Oberon and queen Titania over a changeling child; and the comic rehearsals of a group of Athenian tradesmen ('the Mechanicals') preparing a play for the royal wedding.

The forest, ruled by fairies and enchanted by the mischievous sprite Puck, is a space of transformation where identities shift, lovers swap allegiances under the influence of a magical flower, and the boundaries between reality and dream dissolve. By dawn, all confusions are resolved: the young lovers are properly paired, Oberon and Titania are reconciled, and the Mechanicals perform their hilariously inept play-within-a-play, Pyramus and Thisbe.

For the WAEC SSCE examination, this is the compulsory Shakespeare text. Students are expected to analyse the play's interlocking plots, its treatment of love, illusion and transformation, and Shakespeare's use of contrasting worlds (court, forest, fairy realm, artisan workshop).