SOURCE: "A League Without the Town: A Midsummer Night's Dream," in Lovers, Clowns, and Fairies: An Essay on Comedies, The University of Chicago Press, 1993, pp. 1-25.

In the following essay, Tave examines the structure of A Midsummer Night's Dream, including the arrangement of the characters, the plot, and the language, and praises the play as "perfect in its detailed beauty and its practical workmanship."

A Midsummer Night's Dream is the perfect place to begin. Shaw the minor social scientist insisted that A Doll's House, in its utilitarian way, will have done more useful work in the world, but Shaw the major artist knew that "'A Doll's House' will be as flat as ditch water when 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' will still be fresh as paint. . ." ("The Problem Play," 1895). Only a major artist would use such flat phrases with the instinct that here they were bluntly and exactly right...