<P> It is unknown exactly when A Midsummer Night's Dream was written or first performed, but on the basis of topical references and an allusion to Edmund Spenser's Epithalamion, it is usually dated 1595 or early 1596 . Some have theorised that the play might have been written for an aristocratic wedding (for example that of Elizabeth Carey, Lady Berkeley), while others suggest that it was written for the Queen to celebrate the feast day of St. John, but no evidence exists to support this theory . In any case, it would have been performed at The Theatre and, later, The Globe . Though it is not a translation or adaptation of an earlier work, various sources such as Ovid's Metamorphoses and Chaucer's "The Knight's Tale" served as inspiration . According to John Twyning, the play's plot of four lovers undergoing a trial in the woods was intended as a "riff" on Der Busant, a Middle High German poem . </P> <P> According to Dorothea Kehler, the writing period can be placed between 1594 and 1596, which means that Shakespeare had probably already completed Romeo and Juliet and had yet to start working on The Merchant of Venice . The play belongs to the early - middle period of the author, when Shakespeare devoted his attention to the lyricism of his works . </P> <P> The play was entered into the Register of the Stationers' Company on 8 October 1600 by the bookseller Thomas Fisher, who published the first quarto edition later that year . A second quarto was printed in 1619 by William Jaggard, as part of his so - called False Folio . The play next appeared in print in the First Folio of 1623 . The title page of Q1 states that the play was "sundry times publickely acted" prior to 1600 . The first performance known with certainty occurred at Court on 1 January 1605 . </P> <P> Prior to the Christian St. John's Day, in Ancient Greece, marking Midsummer was an event called Adonia . It was the first festive day (and night) when Adonis was allowed to depart the underworld to spend six months with his paramour, Aphrodite . It was considered a time to celebrate the first bliss of new and reunited lovers . The wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta and the mistaken and waylaid lovers, Titania and Bottom, even the erstwhile acting troupe, model various aspects (and forms) of love . </P>

When was midsummer night's dream first performed
find me the text answering this question