Atifa Binth-e- Zia Roll no 10, M.Phil. Sir Hussain Azam 24 January 2016 An Alternative Perspective: Shakespeare and the World of Fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream In Elizabethan era supernatural elements were not mere fantasy or imagination of an author, rather they were a part of the beliefs of the Elizabethan society. Fairies were one such supernatural creature. This research explores the world of fairies. By focusing on the Elizabethan’s concept of fairies, this paper contends that Shakespeare presents an alternative perspective to the world of fairies. He has not only changed the physiognomy of Elizabethan fairies but also altered the functions that were associated with them. Frances Yates notes that “Shakespeare’s preoccupation with the occult, with ghosts, witches, fairies, is understood as deriving less from popular tradition than from deep-rooted affinity with the learned occult philosophy and its religious implications”(Yates 90). The occult philosophy of the Elizabethan age has its roots in controversial religious politics. In seventeenth century “the nature of the cosmos was itself controversial – and beliefs about this nature affected one’s beliefs about religion or politics […] Thus the stage was open for the “interaction of characters who seem to be inhabiting different, and fundamentally incompatible, spatial epistemologies” (Poole 20). In 1530’s the Protestant Reformation brought a change not only in religious and political ideologies but also role of