Shakespeare’s Folio Egeus: Revising the Revels in <i>A Midsummer Night’s Dream</i>

Abstract William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream contains a major crux in its final scene involving the play’s father figure Egeus. In the 1600 first quarto, Philostrate oversees Duke Theseus’s entertainment. In the 1623 First Folio, Egeus takes Philostrate’s cues as Master of Revels. Although most modern editions follow the quarto, this essay argues that the Folio deserves greater favour since it makes sense of related textual and thematic changes to Egeus, which ultimately affect the presentation of character, of family relationships, and of the play’s own historical context. The Folio return of Egeus capitalizes on three main features of the quarto text. First, the Folio exploits a flexibility in roles for Philostrate and Egeus. Second, a series of previously under-examined textual details common to both texts suggest not only that Egeus is a sensible character to speak the disputed lines but also that he is in league with Lysander, and perhaps implicitly reconciled to Hermia. Third, the historical context of the Master of Revels suggests collaboration in this office and offers some precedent for this in the play, which may indicate a coming together in the last scene of Egeus and Lysander and possibly Philostrate as well.