The key to understanding Shakespeare is to understand the context in which the plays were written and first performed. In his introduction to A Midsummer Night's Dream, Stephen Greenblatt attempts to explain some of the play's stage history, as well the sources that Shakespeare drew upon for the various elements of the play.

Greenblatt begins his discussion of the cultural ideas surrounding the play by recounting the traditional stage legend which states that A Midsummer Night's Dream was first performed at an aristocratic wedding. The source of this legend is unclear, but its veracity is questionable at best. The play's actual stage history is a very rich and complex one, as it has been repeatedly performed and for centuries and consistently popular, despite but in many and varied forms that the performance has taken over the years.

This stage history has reflected closely the changes in culture. During Shakespeare's time, the play was performed on a blank stage with no scenery and minimal props, but that has changed greatly with the culture. In the following centuries, Shakespeare's text has been altered and interpreted to include such luxuries as musical numbers, singing and dancing, complex scenery and expensive special effects.

Despite the consistent popularity of the play, A Midsummer Night's Dream has suffered the same fate as all Shakespeare, as the rich language and culture which it drew upon have become increasingly alien to the audiences. This is the reason for such excellent texts as The Norton Shakespeare, which provides readers with detailed glosses to aid in our understanding. These introductions, as well, serve to introduce us to aspects of the culture which, although everyday life to Shakespeare, can be the subject of a lifetime of scholarly research.

Shakespeare used this culture as a source for many of his ideas and concepts. Greenblatt explains some of the many sources which Shakespeare drew upon, many of which would have been very familiar to Shakespeare's contemporary audience, who came from a humanist tradition which focused on Classical Greek and Roman mythology and culture. The mythological references stemming from the humanist tradition are used by Shakespeare as a sort of additional exposition not present in the dialog. Shakespeare's original audience would have immediately recognized the names of Hippolyta and Theseus from classical myth, and understood the characteristics that Shakespeare was alluding to when he chose those names, although modern readers have no hope of seeing them all without complex glosses and introductions, such as this one written by Steven Greenblatt.

The notion of fairies, too, has been completely transformed by time. During Shakespeare's time, fairies were viewed as very powerful, often malevolent creatures, which is certainly very different from today. Shakespeare's fairies, however, were very different from those that his audience knew, too. Shakespeare's fairies were kindly creatures who didn't want to cause harm, and, other than in Puck's case, didn't want to cause mischief for the humans at all.

The Mischeivous Puck, Greenblatt notes, may have been based on the "crafty slave" stock character from Latin playwrites Plautus and Terence, who "sometimes seems to enjoy and contribute to the plot's tangles, but who manages in the the end to remove the obstacles that stand in the way of the young lovers" (808). This character may have been familiar to at least the educated members of Shakespeare's audience, but is not to modern audiences, who tend to view Puck as little more than a fool who is more trouble than he's worth.

Another, then contemporary, allusion was to the "rite of May", in which young men and ladies would welcome the summer with singing and dancing in the wilderness. This was a holdover from pagan tradition, and may have been experienced personally by Shakespeare. During the rite of May, and Midsummer's Eve, the power of the fairies was most evident, and people often reported seeing them whilst in the wilderness welcoming the may, making that the ideal setting for Shakespeare's masterful comedy.

Greenblatt realizes that understanding of the original contexts which Shakespeare was writing are essential to having a complete appreciation of Shakespeare. He understands that although Shakespeare is called the eternal bard, his works are indelibly stamped with an increasingly distant set of beliefs, ideas and customs.