This course on A Midsummer Night’s Dream will examine how Shakespeare used the “spirit world” in drama as a stage substitute for the great actions of God himself. This was necessary to avoid English law against overtly religious drama, but it also created delightful characters. The play is structured around six (!) different sets of romantic lovers, descending from the spiritual Oberon and Titania, down through the humans: Theseus and Hippolyta; Lysander and Hermia; Demetrius and Helena; to the union of a spirit, Titania, and a human-animal, Bottom; and finally to the fantastical Pyramus and Thisbe. This ladder of lovers and fools shows many ways that love can be distorted by sight that looks mainly to physical beauty or by our petulant wills that override reason. Yet in the end, each lover is healed or aided by Oberon’s spiritual guidance, even if that guidance is mediated by the erratic acts of Puck. Duke Theseus creates a New Law of love fitting for the Feast of St. John the Baptist (Midsummer) who announces the New law of Christ.