[Richman discusses Shakespeare's effective introduction of wonder into A Midsummer Night's Dream Language, the critic explains, is instrumental in creating wonderment, and the characters from the supernatural world identify themselves by their peculiar rhetorical devices and speech mannerisms. The obviously tragic element in the play, Richman observes, is the powerful, potentially devastating, rage underlying the conflict between Oberon and Titania, a dream world confrontation with possibly dire consequences for the denizens of ordinary reality. In Richman's opinion, no director captures the sense of wonder, power and tragic rage better than Peter Brook whose 1970 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream expanded the feeling of wonder-natural in the dream realm-so it could affect the mortals in the play and even the audience.]

[The] introduction of wonder into comedy is not original with Shakespeare. Elements of the marvelous can be found as far back as Aristophanes, preeminently in The Birds...