<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> According to De Vere Family lore (which may or may not actually be true), the wedding of Elizabeth De Vere to William Stanley, Sixth Earl of Derby, on June 26, 1594, at the Court of Greenwich, and occurring in the presence of Queen Elizabeth, this was the event to occasion Shakespeare's first performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream . </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>

Who dies in a midsummer night's dream