Fairy-Thinking and the Labyrinth: The Forest Palimpsest in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595)

In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1595), the forest outside Athens functions as an alternative space to the courtly world of supposed order and the rule of law. Constructed as a palimpsest of various layers, the forest is multi-faceted with shifting guises and roles. As a mirror to the court, it reflects government in a different form; and, as part of an ecology in crisis, it resonates with the flawed leadership and failed nurturing of patriarchal Athenian society. Maze-like and a place of wonder, the forest of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is both enchanting and threatening, as the motif of the labyrinth, with the Theseus and Minotaur intertext, haunts the forest. It is also a creative blank space, where desires and fears can be projected and encountered, offering a place to perform and rehearse the potential for tragedy and transformation. In the play, the fairies and the forest are closely aligned, both leading mortals astray and literalising the journey of the psyche through the labyrinth. This article argues that the interlinked fairies and forest are key to the play’s imaginary, and that their overlapping mythic intertexts enable thinking through human flaws and nurturing responsibilities. I conceptualise this as fairy-thinking, the projecting of the human into a magical green space. Through fairy-thinking, humans confront the other within themselves in negotiating the arboreal labyrinth and moving towards renewal.