ABSTRACT
Friendships are common in Shakespearian drama, but only two plays involve competition between youthful comrades for a mistress, while a third, The Winter's Tale turns on the sexual jealousy that erupts between friends of mature years after their separation and marriage. Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, for example, is obliged to choose between his love for Beatrice and his friendship for Claudio, while Antonio and Portia in The Merchant of Venice exert competing claims upon the loyalty of Bassanio. Less obviously, A Midsummer Night's Dream also looks back to the tissue of ideas exemplified by the tale of Titus and Gisippus, but in this instance the relationship with the inherited story is more complex in that its terms are largely reversed. A Midsummer Night's Dream particularly interesting for feminist criticism, and a significant text in the debate over the dramatist's socio-political stance.
