Athens, at the beginning of the play, is partly classical and partly Chaucer’s somewhat quaint medieval dukedom. When the lovers return to it at the end, it seems to have transformed itself almost entirely into an Elizabethan great house. … Like Athens the wood nearby where most of the action takes place is both mythological and intensely English, alien and familiar. It is a compelling invention precisely because its true nature remains mysterious. (page 218)
In the Pyramus and Thisby interlude Shakespeare was remembering, and mocking, actual plays which had formed part of the repertory of the children’s companies and of the travelling groups of adult players when he was a boy. Some of Bottom’s most grotesque speeches as Pyramus are surprisingly close to lines intended to be spoken in all seriousness in Appius and Virginia (1564) or in Preston’s Cambises (1561). The mechanicals themselves are deeply confused about the nature of theatrical illusion. (page 218)