Meiko O'Halloran – författare

This collection is comprised of ten of Hogg's poems which, in very different ways, explore the visionary and supernatural, and the writer's portrayal of them - echoing the subject and title of Shakespeare's famous play.Included among the poems are: 'The Pilgrims of the Sun', which seeks to demonstrate Hogg's command not only of his native Scottish tradition of poetry but also of the English tradition of Milton and Pope; the weirdly brilliant 'Connel of Dee'; 'The Gyre Caryl' in which Hogg recounts the birth of Heavenly Grace and the departure of the fairies from Scotland; and 'Verses Addressed to the Right Honourable Lady Anne Scott of Buccleuch'.Taken together the ten poems of Midsummer Night Dreams and Related Poems substantiate Hogg's vaunted claim to be 'King o' the mountain and fairy school' of poetry.

This study argues for Hogg's centrality to British Romanticism, resituating his work in relation to many of his more famous Romantic contemporaries. Hogg creates a unique literary style which, the author argues, is best described as 'kaleidoscopic' in view of its similarities with David Brewster's kaleidoscope, invented in 1816.