A speculative religious reading of A Midsummer Night’s Dream:
In a way that is all but straightforward, Shakespeare weaves repeated invocations of serpentine imagery, delineates characters on gendered lines, and overlays a driving tension between fate and free will. Accidental or intended, these features invite a connection of A Midsummer Night’s Dream to foundational Christian theology, specifically to the story of Genesis.
Fall of Princes. John Lydgate. 15th century. The Garden of Eden or Shakespeare’s fairy woods?