Shakespeare & the Uses of Comedy

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Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 9780813130958
Total Pages : 300 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (39 download)

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Book Synopsis Shakespeare & the Uses of Comedy by : Joseph Allen Bryant

Download or read book Shakespeare & the Uses of Comedy written by Joseph Allen Bryant and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 1986 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Shakespeare's hand the comic mode became an instrument for exploring the broad territory of the human situation, including much that had normally been reserved for tragedy. Once the reader recognizes that justification for such an assumption is presented repeatedly in the earlier comedies -- from The Comedy of Errors to Twelfth Night -- he has less difficulty in dispensing with the currently fashionable classifications of the later comedies as problem plays and romances or tragicomedies and thus in seeing them all as manifestations of a single impulse. Bryant shows how Shakespeare, early a.

The Evolution of Shakespeare's Comedy

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Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674271418
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (714 download)

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Book Synopsis The Evolution of Shakespeare's Comedy by : Larry S. Champion

Download or read book The Evolution of Shakespeare's Comedy written by Larry S. Champion and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1970 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The evolution of Shakespeare's comedy, in Larry Champion's view, is apparent in the expansion of his comic vision to include a complete reflection of human life while maintaining a comic detachment for the audience. Like the other popular dramatists of Elizabethan England, Shakespeare used the diverse comic motifs and devices which time and custom had proved effective. He went further, however, and created progressively deeper levels of characterization and plot interaction, thereby forming characters who were not merely devices subordinated to the needs of the plot. Shakespeare's development as a comic playwright, suggests Champion, was "consistently in the direction of complexity or depth of characterization." His earliest works, like those of his contemporaries, are essentially situation comedies: the humor arises from action rather than character. There is no significant development of the main characters; instead, they are manipulated into situations which are humorous as a result, for example, of mistaken identity or slapstick confusion. The ensuing phase of Shakespeare's comedy sets forth plots in which the emphasis is on identity rather than physical action, a revelation of character which occurs in one of two forms: either a hypocrite is exposed for what he actually is or a character who has assumed an unnatural or abnormal pose is forced to realize and admit the ridiculousness of his position. In the final comedies involving sin and sacrificial forgiveness, however, character development is concerned with a "transformation of values." Although each of the comedies is discussed, Champion concentrates on nine, dividing them according to the complexity of characterization. He pursues as well the playwright's efforts to achieve for the spectator the detached stance so vital to comedy. Shakespeare obtained this perspective, Champion observes, through experimentation with the use of material mirroring the main action--mockery, parody, or caricature--and through the use of a "comic pointer" who is himself involved in the action but is sufficiently independent of the other characters to provide the audience with an omniscient view.

The Comedy of Errors

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 86 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (1 download)

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Book Synopsis The Comedy of Errors by : William Shakespeare

Download or read book The Comedy of Errors written by William Shakespeare and published by . This book was released on 1898 with total page 86 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The Cambridge Companion to Shakespearean Comedy

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521779425
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (794 download)

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Book Synopsis The Cambridge Companion to Shakespearean Comedy by : Alexander Leggatt

Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Shakespearean Comedy written by Alexander Leggatt and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An accessible, wide-ranging and informed introduction to Shakespeare's comedies, dark comedies and romances, first published in 2001.

Shakespeare and the Traditions of Comedy

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521291132
Total Pages : 372 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis Shakespeare and the Traditions of Comedy by : Leo Salingar

Download or read book Shakespeare and the Traditions of Comedy written by Leo Salingar and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1974 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For students of English and European literature, renaissance studies, comparative literature, drama and classics.

Four Comedies

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Publisher : Bantam Classics
ISBN 13 : 0307420590
Total Pages : 736 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (74 download)

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Book Synopsis Four Comedies by : William Shakespeare

Download or read book Four Comedies written by William Shakespeare and published by Bantam Classics. This book was released on 2009-08-26 with total page 736 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Taming of the Shrew Robust and bawdy, The Taming of the Shrew captivates audiences with outrageous humor as Katharina, the shrew, engages in a contest of wills–and love–with her bridegroom, Petruchio, in a comedy of unmatched theatrical brilliance, filled with visual gags and witty repartee. A Midsummer Night's Dream Fairy magic, love spells, and an enchanted wood turn the mismatched rivalries of four young lovers into a marvelous mix-up of desire and enchantment, all touched by Shakespeare’s inimitable vision of the intriguing relationship between dreams and the waking world. The Merchant of Venice This dark comedy of love and money contains one of the truly mythic figures in literature–Shylock, the Jewish moneylender. The “pound of flesh” he demands as payment of Antonio’s debt has become a universal metaphor for vengeance. Here, pathos and farce combine with moral complexity and romantic entanglements, to display the extraordinary power and range of Shakespeare at his best. Twelfth Night Set in a topsy-turvy world like a holiday revel, this comedy juxtaposes a romantic plot involving separated twins and mistaken identity with a more satiric one about the humiliation of a pompous killjoy. The hilarity is touched with melancholy, and the play ends, not with laughter, but with a clown’s plaintive song. Each Edition Includes: • Comprehensive explanatory notes • Vivid introductions and the most up-to-date scholarship • Clear, modernized spelling and punctuation, enabling contemporary readers to understand the Elizabethan English • Completely updated, detailed bibliographies and performance histories • An interpretive essay on film adaptations of the play, along with an extensive filmography

The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare's Comedies

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1139469770
Total Pages : 197 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (394 download)

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Book Synopsis The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare's Comedies by : Penny Gay

Download or read book The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare's Comedies written by Penny Gay and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2008-04-07 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why did theatre audiences laugh in Shakespeare's day? Why do they still laugh now? What did Shakespeare do with the conventions of comedy that he inherited, so that his plays continue to amuse and move audiences? What do his comedies have to say about love, sex, gender, power, family, community, and class? What place have pain, cruelty, and even death in a comedy? Why all those puns? In a survey that travels from Shakespeare's earliest experiments in farce and courtly love-stories to the great romantic comedies of his middle years and the mould-breaking experiments of his last decade's work, this book addresses these vital questions. Organised thematically, and covering all Shakespeare's comedies from the beginning to the end of his career, it provides readers with a map of the playwright's comic styles, showing how he built on comedic conventions as he further enriched the possibilities of the genre.

Beyond a Common Joy

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Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
ISBN 13 : 9780803215740
Total Pages : 376 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (157 download)

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Book Synopsis Beyond a Common Joy by : Paul A. Olson

Download or read book Beyond a Common Joy written by Paul A. Olson and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ?Soul of the age!? Ben Jonson eulogized Shakespeare, and in the next breath, ?He was not of an age but for all time.? That he was both ?of the age? and ?for all time? is, this book suggests, the key to Shakespeare?s comic genius. In this engaging introduction to the First Folio comedies, Paul A. Olson gives a persuasive and thoroughly engrossing account of the playwright?s comic transcendence, showing how Shakespeare, by taking on the great themes of his time, elevated comedy from a mere mid-level literary form to its own form of greatness?on par with epic and tragedy. Like the best tragic or epic writers, Shakespeare in his comedies goes beyond private and domestic matters in order to draw on the whole of the commonwealth. He examines how a ruler?s or a court?s community at the household and local levels shapes the politics of empire?existing or nascent empires such as England, the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, Venice, and the Ottoman Empire or part empires such as Rome and Athens?where all their suffering and silliness play into how they govern. In Olson?s work we also see how Shakespeare?s appropriation of his age?s ideas about classical myth and biblical scriptures bring to his comic action a sort of sacral profundity in keeping with notions of poetry as ?inspired? and comic endings as more than merely happy but as, in fact, uncommonly joyful.

Shakespeare's Festive Comedy

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Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691149526
Total Pages : 323 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis Shakespeare's Festive Comedy by : Cesar Lombardi Barber

Download or read book Shakespeare's Festive Comedy written by Cesar Lombardi Barber and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 323 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this classic work, acclaimed Shakespeare critic C. L. Barber argues that Elizabethan seasonal festivals such as May Day and Twelfth Night are the key to understanding Shakespeare's comedies. Brilliantly interweaving anthropology, social history, and literary criticism, Barber traces the inward journey--psychological, bodily, spiritual--of the comedies: from confusion, raucous laughter, aching desire, and aggression, to harmony. Revealing the interplay between social custom and dramatic form, the book shows how the Elizabethan antithesis between everyday and holiday comes to life in the comedies' combination of seriousness and levity. "I have been led into an exploration of the way the social form of Elizabethan holidays contributed to the dramatic form of festive comedy. To relate this drama to holiday has proved to be the most effective way to describe its character. And this historical interplay between social and artistic form has an interest of its own: we can see here, with more clarity of outline and detail than is usually possible, how art develops underlying configurations in the social life of a culture."--C. L. Barber, in the Introduction This new edition includes a foreword by Stephen Greenblatt, who discusses Barber's influence on later scholars and the recent critical disagreements that Barber has inspired, showing that Shakespeare's Festive Comedy is as vital today as when it was originally published.

Names as Metaphors in Shakespeare’s Comedies

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Publisher : Vernon Press
ISBN 13 : 1648892701
Total Pages : 371 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (488 download)

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Book Synopsis Names as Metaphors in Shakespeare’s Comedies by : Grant W. Smith

Download or read book Names as Metaphors in Shakespeare’s Comedies written by Grant W. Smith and published by Vernon Press. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Names as Metaphors in Shakespeare’s Comedies' presents a comprehensive study of names in Shakespeare’s comedies. Although names are used in daily speech as simple designators, often with minimal regard for semantic or phonological suggestiveness, their coinage is always based on analogy. They are words (i.e., signs) borrowed from previous referents and contexts, and applied to new referents. Thus, in the literary use of language, names are figurative inventions and have measurable thematic significance: they evoke an association of attributes between two or more referents, contextualize each work of literature within its time, and reflect the artistic development of the writer. In the introduction, Smith describes the literary use of names as creative choices that show the indebtedness of authors to previous literature, as well as their imaginative descriptions (etymologically and phonologically) of memorable character types, and their references to cultural phenomena that make their names meaningful to their contemporary readers and audience. This book presents fourteen essays demonstrating the analytical models explained in the introduction. These essays focus on Shakespeare’s comedies as presented in the First Folio. They do not follow the chronological order of their composition; instead, the individual essays give special attention to differences between the plays that suggest Shakespeare’s artistic development, including the varied sources of his borrowings, the differences between his etymological and phonological coinages, the frequency and types of his topical references, and his use of epithets and generics. This book will appeal to Shakespeare students and scholars at all levels, particularly those who are keen on studying his comedies. This study will also be relevant for researchers and graduate students interested in onomastics. He can be reached at [email protected].

The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108623298
Total Pages : 518 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (86 download)

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Book Synopsis The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race by : Ayanna Thompson

Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race written by Ayanna Thompson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-25 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race shows teachers and students how and why Shakespeare and race are inseparable. Moving well beyond Othello, the collection invites the reader to understand racialized discourses, rhetoric, and performances in all of Shakespeare's plays, including the comedies and histories. Race is presented through an intersectional approach with chapters that focus on the concepts of sexuality, lineage, nationality, and globalization. The collection helps students to grapple with the unique role performance plays in constructions of race by Shakespeare (and in Shakespearean performances), considering both historical and contemporary actors and directors. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Race will be the first book that truly frames Shakespeare studies and early modern race studies for a non-specialist, student audience.

Gender and Performance in Shakespeare's Problem Comedies

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Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780253113344
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (133 download)

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Book Synopsis Gender and Performance in Shakespeare's Problem Comedies by : David F. McCandless

Download or read book Gender and Performance in Shakespeare's Problem Comedies written by David F. McCandless and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1997-12-22 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This is exactly the kind of work, with its synthesis of theory, close reading, and deconstructive performance criticism that many of us in the profession have been looking for." -- Joel B. Altman, University of California, Berkeley "McCandless's book represents an inventive and illuminating account that not only produces a theoretically activated text but also explores a range of options for staging it, turning theoretical into theatrical meanings." -- Barbara Hodgdon, Drake University "The writing is clear, snappy, wonderfully informed with a vivid and experienced theatrical imagination... a book that taught me a good deal about the problem comedies, especially from the vantage point of performance, though the insights into performance are fully and incisively integrated with, and they richly illuminate, formal, thematic, and psychological vantage points on the play." -- Richard P. Wheeler, University of Illinois Composed at a critical moment in English history, All's Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, and Troilus and Cressida -- Shakespeare's problem plays -- dramatize a crisis in the sex-gender system. They register a male dread of emasculation and engulfment, a fear of female authority and sexuality. In these plays males identify desire for a female as dangerous and unmanly, females contend and confound traditional femininity. David McCandless's book is a unique and invigorating example of performance criticism that illuminates these difficult, sometimes-overlooked tragicomedies. It is an original and timely contribution to Shakespearean theater scholarship.

The New Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 0521886325
Total Pages : 381 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (218 download)

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Book Synopsis The New Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare by : Margreta De Grazia

Download or read book The New Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare written by Margreta De Grazia and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-03-25 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twenty-one essays provide lively and authoritative approaches to the literary, historical, cultural and performative aspects of Shakespeare works.

The Metamorphoses of Shakespearean Comedy

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Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400854814
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (8 download)

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Book Synopsis The Metamorphoses of Shakespearean Comedy by : William C. Carroll

Download or read book The Metamorphoses of Shakespearean Comedy written by William C. Carroll and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that the idea of metamorphosis is central to both the theory and practice of Shakespearean comedy. It offers a synthesis of several major themes of Shakespearean comedy--identity, change, desire, marriage, and comic form--under the master trope of transformation. Originally published in 1985. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Shakespeare's Universe of Discourse

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Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521225922
Total Pages : 360 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (259 download)

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Book Synopsis Shakespeare's Universe of Discourse by : Keir Elam

Download or read book Shakespeare's Universe of Discourse written by Keir Elam and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1984-06-21 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book makes ample use of approaches to language within linguistics, semiotics, the philosophy of language and sociology, in order to do justice to the subtlety of Shakespeare's verbal artistry. Keir Elam adopts a fresh approach to the language of Shakespeare's comedies, considering it not simply as 'style' but as the principal dramatic and comic substance of the plays. Traditional analysis of the language as 'diction', 'expression' or 'verbal structure' is not adequate to describe the range and importance of linguistic functions in these plays. This book shows that in Shakespearean comedy language, or rather 'discourse', language in use, is always a dynamic, active protagonist of the drama. The author explores the extraordinary gamut of verbal activities or 'language-games' that contribute to the rich rhetorical make-up of the comedies. The historical framework complements the application of critical theory which will assure a readership among students and teachers of Shakespeare as well as those interested in liguistics and semiotics.

Shakespeare and Classical Comedy

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Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Shakespeare and Classical Comedy by : Robert S. Miola

Download or read book Shakespeare and Classical Comedy written by Robert S. Miola and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 1994 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book surveys Shakespeare's comedies, charting the influence upon them of the ancient playwrights, Plautus and Terence. Robert S. Miola analyses these sources, and places the comedies in their Renaissance context, as well as in the larger context of European theatre. Discovering new indebtedness, and discerning new patterns in previously attested borrowings, Shakespeare and Classical Comedy presents an integrated and comprehensive assessment of the complex interactions of the Classical, Shakespearean, and other Renaissance theatres. Robert S. Miola re-evaluates Plautus and Terence in the light of their Greek antecedents, and gives special attention to Renaissance translations and commentaries, Italian theorists, and playwrights, as well as contemporary dramatists such as Middleton, Jonson, Heywood, and Chapman. Four broad categories organize the discussion - New Comedic errors, intrigue, alazoneia (pretension), and romance - and each is illustrated by illuminating readings of individual Shakespearean plays. The author keeps in view Shakespeare's eclecticism, his habit of combining disparate sources and traditions, as well as the rich history of literary criticism and theatrical interpretation. The book concludes by discussing the presence of New Comedy in tragedy, in Hamlet and King Lear. Robert S. Miola's thoroughly researched book ranges over a vast amount of European drama, from Aristophanes to Beckett and Ionesco. It makes an important contribution to our understanding not only of Shakespeare and his foremost antecedents, but also of Renaissance theatre, and its complex adaptations of ancient texts and traditions.

Shakespeare's Comedies of Love

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Publisher : University of Toronto Press
ISBN 13 : 0802039537
Total Pages : 345 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (2 download)

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Book Synopsis Shakespeare's Comedies of Love by : Richard Paul Knowles

Download or read book Shakespeare's Comedies of Love written by Richard Paul Knowles and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2008-01-01 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shakespeare's Comedies of Love is a tribute to Alexander Leggatt, a critic who has shaped the way the world understands Shakespeare and his comedies.