SOURCE: Leinwand, Theodore B. “‘I Believe We Must Leave the Killing out’: Deference and Accommodation in A Midsummer Night's Dream.” In A Midsummer Night's Dream: Critical Essays, edited by Dorothea Kehler, pp. 145-64. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1998.

In the following essay, originally published in 1986, Leinwand examines the conflict between social classes in A Midsummer Night's Dream and discusses its influence on the actions of the characters.

No sooner has the artisan weaver Bottom begun to speak with the fairy queen Titania than he takes the occasion to “gleek.”¹ Observing that “reason and love keep little company together nowadays,” Bottom thinks it a “pity that some honest neighbours will not make them friends” (III.i.140-141). It is at once an hilarious and a potentially subversive moment: an artisan finds himself spectacularly close to a queen. Of course, it has been noted that for all Bottom's and Titania's...