A Midsummer Night's Dream

File:John_Simmons_-_Titania_sleeping_in_the_moonlight_protected_by_her_fairies.jpgHermia and Helena by Washington Allston, 1818The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania by Joseph Noel Paton, 1849A drawing of Puck, Titania and Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream from Act III, Scene II by Charles Buchel, 1905A print by Samuel Cousins reproducing an Edwin Landseer painting depicting Titania affectionately leaning on Bottom.Titania and Bottom, Henry Fuseli (c.1790)The title page from the first quarto, printed in 1600Hermia and Lysander by John Simmons (1870)Edwin Landseer, Scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream. Titania and Bottom (1848)The Awakening of the Fairy Queen TitaniaMidsummer Eve by Edward Robert Hughes c. 1908Samuel Pepys, who wrote the oldest known comments on the play, found A Midsummer Night's Dream to be "the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life".[30]William Hazlitt preferred reading A Midsummer Night's Dream over watching it acted on stage.William Maginn thought Bottom a lucky man and was particularly amused that he treats Titania, the Queen of the Fairies, "as carelessly as if she were the wench of the next-door tapster".[34]Georg Gottfried Gervinus thought Hermia lacking in filial piety and devoid of conscience for running away with Lysander, himself not a shining beacon of virtue (here seen wooing Helena).[36]

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