Develop an interpretive thesis that explicates Shakespeare’s development of a theme in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Your essay should offer an engagement with some of the formal features we’ve discussed as you analyse your
play or poem (for example, plot, characterization, diction (word choice), verse form, alliteration/assonance,
figurative language (metaphor, simile, imagery), rhetorical figures, etc.), but you need not feel obliged to address
them all. Indeed you’ll need to narrow down your topic in order to come up with a coherent thesis and focus.

General Essay Guidelines:
Thesis:
A thesis is more than a general topic or an accurate description or paraphrase of a poem or play. It must
say something that would not be obvious to a reasonably intelligent person who has read the poem/play once or
twice. (Hence, you should read the poem/play many times while developing your thesis.) A thesis interprets,
rather than describes; it figures out how a poem/play says what it says. A thesis makes an argument about a
poem/play, which requires that you should be able to imagine debating your thesis with someone who wouldn’t
immediately agree with you, and imagine that you could marshal enough evidence to convince him or her.