In this study of A Midsummer Night's Dream, James Calderwood calls on psychoanalysis, feminism, anthropology and metadrama, to demonstrate the profound complexity of the play. He shows how Shakespeare explores the nature of human desire by exploiting the seriousness of high (and low) comedy. The power of representation to oppress, perplex, amuse and enlighten, is shown to be active everywhere in the play: in the patriarchies of Theseus and Oberon, in the imaginations of the lovers, in the bodiless absence of the fairies, and in the embodied presence of the Peter Quince players. Exploring Shakespeare's treatment of such matters, Calderwood attempts to deepen the suggestiveness of one of Shakespeare's most popular comedies.