The Cambridge Companion to Shakespearean Comedy

by Edited by Alexander Leggatt

• ISBN13: 9780521779425
• ISBN10: 0521779421
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-01-21
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This is an accessible, wide-ranging and informed introduction to Shakespeare's comedies and romances. Rather than taking each play in isolation, the chapters trace recurring issues, suggesting both the continuity and the variety of Shakespeare's practice and the creative use he made of the conventions he inherited. The first section puts Shakespeare in the context of classical and Renaissance comedy and comic theory, the work of his Elizabethan predecessors and the traditions of popular festivity. The second section traces a number of themes through Shakespeare's early and middle comedies, dark comedies and late romances, establishing the key features of his comedy as a whole and illuminating particular plays by close analysis. Individual chapters draw on contemporary politics, rhetoric, and the history of Shakespeare production. Written by experts in the relevant fields, the chapters bring the reader up to date on current thinking and frequently challenge long-standing critical assumptions.

Table of Contents

Notes on contributors	ix
Preface	xiii
Chronology	xvii
Part 1: Shakespeare and comic tradition
Theories of comedy	3	(15)
David Galbraith
Roman comedy	18	(14)
Robert S. Miola
Italian stories on the stage	32	(15)
Louise George Clubb
Elizabethan comedy	47	(17)
Janette Dillon
Popular festivity	64	(17)
Francois Laroque
Part 2: Shakespearean comedy
Forms of confusion	81	(21)
John Creaser
Love and courtship	102	(21)
Catherine Bates
Laughing at ``others''	123	(16)
Edward Berry
Comedy and sex	139	(17)
Alexander Leggatt
Language and comedy	156	(23)
Lynne Magnusson
Sexual disguise and the theatre of gender	179	(19)
Barbara Hodgdon
Matters of state	198	(17)
Anthony Miller
The experiment of romance	215	(15)
Michael O'Connell
Select bibliography	230	(4)
Index	234