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.
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
Download or read book Shakespeare s Comedies written by Bart Van Es and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this work, Bart Van Es analyses Shakespeare's comedic plays, picking out the family resemblances across these works. He considers their shared themes such as confusion and cross dressing, misguided love, twins and substitutions, and explores the bard's verbal artistry and wit.
Download or read book An Introduction to Shakespeare s Comedies written by Patrick Swinden and published by Springer. This book was released on 1976-06-01 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
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.
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.
Download or read book An introduction to Shakespeare s comedies written by and published by . This book was released on 1985 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Comedy of Errors written by William Shakespeare and published by . This book was released on 1904 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Great Comedies and Tragedies written by William Shakespeare and published by Wordsworth Editions. This book was released on 2005 with total page 900 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The collection of the finest of Shakespeare's plays presents Shakespeare's comedies with introductions by Judith Buchanan and tragedies with introductions by Emma 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].
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.
Download or read book Shakespeare the Comedies written by and published by . This book was released on 1965* with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book One Hour Shakespeare written by Julie Fain Lawrence-Edsell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-11-29 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The One-Hour Shakespeare series is a collection of abridged versions of Shakespeare’s plays, designed specifically to accommodate both small and large casts. This volume, More Comedies and Tragedies, includes the following plays: The Comedy of Errors The Taming of the Shrew Antony and Cleopatra King Lear These accessible and versatile scripts are supported by: an introduction with emphasis on the evolution of the series and the creative process of editing; the One-Hour projects in performance, a chapter on implementing money-saving ideas and suggestions for production whether in or outside of a classroom setting; specific lesson plans to incorporate these projects successfully into an academic course; suggested casting assignments for small to large casts; the how-tos of producing a radio play; and cross-gender casting suggestions. These supplementary materials make the plays valuable not only for actors, but for any environment, cast or purpose. Ideal for both academics and professionals, One-Hour Shakespeare is the perfect companion to teaching and staging the most universally read and performed playwright in history.
Download or read book The Comedies of Shakespeare written by William Shakespeare and published by . This book was released on 1960 with total page 1192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book William Shakespeare written by Harold Bloom and published by Facts On File. This book was released on 1985 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spine title: Shakespeare histories. Contains critical essays written by scholars about Shakespeare's histories and poetry.
Download or read book Shakespeare s Comedies written by Ralph Berry and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-17 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this lucid and original study, first published in 1972, Ralph Berry discusses the ten comedies that run from The Comedy of Errors to Twelfth Night. Berry’s purpose is to identify the form of each play by relating the governing idea of the play to the action that expresses it. To this end the author employs a variety of standpoints and techniques, and taken together, these chapters present a lively and coherent view of Shakespeare’s techniques, concerns, and development. This title will be of interests to students of literature and drama.
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.
