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The only previously published psychoanalytic paper on Shakespeare's “Midsummer Night's Dream” that has come to my attention was written by Weston A. Gui. (2) Under the title of “Bottom's Dream” it appeared in the American Imago in 1952. Gui proposes and carefully documents the thesis that the entire play can be read as a symbolic representation of a primal scene night in the life of a child. The following is a brief synopsis of the remainder of Gui's paper: The “Dream” in the title of the play represents Bottom's dream of his transformation into an ass and his subsequent encounter with Titania. The latent content of this dream refers to oral and Oedipal conflicts around mother. According to Gui, the play further reveals failure to find a non-neurotic solution of these conflicts.
Gui further postulates that Bottom represents Shakespeare. He gives the following relevant historical information: The play was written for the marriage of one Elizabeth Carey. A few months before her marriage this woman was engaged to a William Lord Herbert, who was then only 15 years old. Gui believes that the play was commissioned when Lord Herbert was still the bridegroom-to-be. Now it happens that this Lord Herbert is the same young man to whom Shakespeare in later years wrote the famous homosexual sonnet. Therefore, still following Gui, we can assume that the rejection of the young suitor by his fiancee evoked in Shakespeare unresolved oral conflicts through identification with this young man. Also, the connubial festivities stirred up primal scene memories. Thus rage at mother appears on both levels. With Harry B. Lee, Gui states that the play represents