How do the texts of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Macbeth illustrate Shakespeare’s allegorical response to events and political concerns?   Katherine Pass College

As far back as Plato’s theory of imitation it has been asserted that “the poet always copies an earlier act of creation from reality or from other literary representations” (Carter 49). When Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer Night’s Dream around 1595 and Macbeth around 1606, he drew strongly from source material, including known history, recent events and classical texts. It is argued in this essay that in doing so he included topical allegorical meanings that suited the concerns of his patronage and personal interests. In addition to using these elements, no writer writes in seclusion from all other influence. Allen writes that “works of literature, after all, are built from systems, codes and traditions established by previous works of literature.” (Allen 1). Allegory was an established and expected element of writing in the Elizabethan period. John Harington may have tended toward literal preferences himself (Nelson 361), however he notes that:

"while some audiences might be satisfied with the pleasantnes of the historie and sweetnes of the verse, some that have stronger stomackes will as it were take a further taste of the Morall sence, a third sort, more high conceited then they, will digest the Allegorie: so as indeed it hath...