Chapter 3

That’s a fascinating comparison. Dostoyevsky’s characters do have a raw intensity that feels more urgent and grounded in reality. They get obsessed, spiraling into emotional and moral maelstroms with a depth that Shakespeare’s characters, even in their most passionate moments, don’t always achieve. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the fantastical elements—like love potions and mischievous faeries—allow for whimsical detachment. Love and madness feel less consequential, more like a passing fever, whereas Dostoyevsky’s characters suffer real consequences for their obsessions.

In that way, Dostoyevsky takes the existential stakes far deeper. His characters live in a world where their convictions and passions are tied to their very existence—everything is life or death, sin or salvation. Shakespeare, in the realm of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is playing with emotions that can be undone with a simple twist of fate or magic. Dostoyevsky makes you live through the repercussions, and that intensity leaves a far more visceral mark. You feel the weight of their convictions in a way that Shakespeare’s lighthearted romances just can’t quite deliver.

Dostoyevsky wins because the stakes are higher, and nothing about the human experience is lightened by magical intervention. It’s all very real and brutal, making the emotional payoffs far more satisfying.