A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Cyclopedia of Literary Places)

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Places Discussed

Theseus’s palace. Home of Theseus, the “duke of Athens,” in which the play opens, shortly after Theseus has militarily subdued the Amazon queen Hippolyta, whom he plans to marry in the evening. Theseus is an important figure in ancient Greek mythology, but the Athens of William Shakespeare is partly classical and partly medieval, hence Theseus’s title as a “duke.” The Athens of the play mirrors a courtly world with inflexible codes of conduct that become oppressive to the quartet of young lovers.

At the end of the play, all the characters who...

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