Draw Connections: A scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and “The Stolen Child”
William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream provides one of the most enduring visions of fairies in Western Literature. In it, the fairies meddle in the world of the humans, even as they work to solve their own conflicts. The forest they inhabit is a magical space of transformations, both literal (as Nick Bottom is given the head of an ass) and figurative (as the young lovers finally reach a resolution to their misdirected affections). The scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream presents the fairies as interested in human affairs and very willing to meddle in them. William Butler Yeats’ poem, “The Stolen Child” (written in 1889, centuries after Shakespeare’s play) presents a vision of what fairies who meddle in human affairs are capable of.
Document links:
Annotated text of A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Annotated text of “The Stolen Child”