Download or read book Comic Transformations in Shakespeare written by Ruth Nevo and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-11 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1980. In this study of Shakespeare's ten early comedies, from The Comedy of Errors to Twelfth Night, the concept of a dynamic of comic form is developed; the Falstaff plays are seen as a watershed, and the emergence of new comic protagonists - the resourceful, anti-romantic romantic heroine and the Fool - as the summit of the achievement. The plays are explored from three complementary perspectives - theoretical, developmental and interpretative which lead to a further understanding of the powerful relation between the plays' formal complexity and their naturalistic verisimilitude.
Download or read book Shakespeare s comic theory written by Thomas Allen Nelson and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-03-18 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: No detailed description available for "Shakespeare's comic theory".
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.
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.
Download or read book Shakespeare s Rhetoric of Comic Character written by Karen Newman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-11 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1985. In this revisionist history of comic characterization, Karen Newman argues that, contrary to received opinion, Shakespeare was not the first comic dramatist to create self-conscious characters who seem 'lifelike' or 'realistic'. His comic practice is firmly set within a comic tradition which stretches from Plautus and Menander to playwrights of the Italian Renaissance.
Download or read book The Taming of the Shrew written by Harold Bloom and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2009 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a collection of essays discussing aspects of William Shakespeare's comedy portraying the ageless battle between the sexes.
Download or read book The Shakespearean Grotesque written by Willard Farnham and published by Oxford : Clarendon Press. This book was released on 1971 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Comic Matrix of Shakespeare s Tragedies written by Susan Snyder and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-29 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comic elements in Shakespeare's tragedies have often been noted, but while most critics have tended to concentrate on humorous interludes or on a single play, Susan Snyder seeks a more comprehensive understanding of how Shakespeare used the conventions, structures, and assumptions of comedy in his tragic writing. She argues that Shakespeare's early mastery of romantic comedy deeply influenced his tragedies both in dramaturgy and in the expression and development of his tragic vision. From this perspective she sheds new light on Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear. The author shows Shakespeare's tragic vision evolving as he moves through three possibilities: comedy and tragedy functioning first as polar opposites, later as two sides of the same coin, and finally as two elements in a single compound. In the four plays examined here, Professor Snyder finds that traditional comic structures and assumptions operate in several ways to shape the tragedy: they set up expectations which when proven false reinforce the movement into tragic inevitability; they underline tragic awareness by a pointed irrelevance; they establish a point of departure for tragedy when comedy's happy assumptions reveal their paradoxical "shadow" side; and they become part of the tragedy itself when the comic elements threaten the tragic hero with insignificance and absurdity. Susan Snyder is Professor of English at Swarthmore College. Originally published in 1979. 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.
Download or read book Acting Funny written by Frances N. Teague and published by Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. This book was released on 1994 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finally, these assumptions lead to the corollary that such hierarchies are natural and immutable and not fashioned by critics.
Download or read book Shakespeare s Comedies A Very Short Introduction written by Bart van Es and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-03-24 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From The Two Gentlemen of Verona in the early 1590s to The Two Noble Kinsmen at the end of his career around 1614, Shakespeare wrote at least eighteen plays that can be called 'comedies': a far higher number than that for any other genre in which he wrote. So what is a Shakespearean comedy? We associate these plays with such themes as mistaken identities, happy marriages, and exuberant cross dressing, but how representative are these of the oeuvre as a whole? In this Very Short Introduction, Bart van Es explores the full range of the playwright's comic writing, from the neat classical plotting of early works like The Comedy of Errors to the corrupt world of the so-called problem plays, written in the middle years of Shakespeare's life. Examining Shakespeare's influences and sources, van Es compares his plays to those of his rivals, and looks at the history of the plays in performance, from the biographies of Shakespeare's original actors to the plays' endless reinvention in modern stage productions and in films. Identifying the key qualities that make Shakespearean comedy distinctive, van Es traces the changing nature of Shakespeare's comic writing over the course of a career that spanned nearly a quarter century of theatrical change. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Download or read book As You Like It William Shakespeare written by Harold Bloom and published by Infobase Publishing. This book was released on 2009 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of essays about Shakespeare's comedic play As you like it, addressing its structure, themes, and subject matter.
Download or read book Shakespeare and the American Musical written by Irene G. Dash and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Bard on Broadway
Download or read book Shakespeare and his Comedies written by John Russell Brown and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-11 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1957. This edition reprints the second edition of 1962. The originality, vitality and variety of Shakespeare's comedies do not suggest a writer at ease with a formula which works to his own satisfaction and the pleasure of his audience; against first impressions they suggest an artist seeking to express an idea which is always eluding a completely developed presentation. The second edition of this book contains an extensive new chapter on Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest.
Download or read book Shakespeare s Other Language written by Ruth Nevo and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shakespeare’s last plays, the tragicomic Romances, are notoriously strange plays, riddled with fabulous events and incredible coincidences, magic and dream. These features have sometimes been interpreted as the carelessness of an of an aging dramatist weary of his craft, or justified as folklore motifs, suitable to the romance tale. But neither view explains the fascination and power these plays still exert. Originally published in 1987, Ruth Nevo’s book offers a reading of the plays which invokes the findings and methods of post-psychoanalytic semiotics. Drawing on a Lacanian model of the "textual unconscious", she embarks on searching analyses of Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest, brilliantly illuminating their apparent absurdities and anomalies, their bizarre or preposterous events and obscurely motivated actions, their often puzzling syntax. Her investigation of the plays’ informing fantasies produces unified and enriched readings which serve both to rehabilitate those plays which have been less than highly thought of, and to disclose new significance in the acknowledged masterpieces.
Download or read book Shakespeare s As You Like It written by M. Hunt and published by Springer. This book was released on 2008-02-04 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a study of As You Like It , which shows how the play represents issues of interest to literate playgoers of its time, as well as speculatively to Shakespeare himself.
Download or read book The Definitive Shakespeare Companion 4 volumes written by Joseph Rosenblum and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2017-06-22 with total page 3141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This expansive four-volume work gives students detailed explanations of Shakespeare's plays and poems and also covers his age, life, theater, texts, and language. Numerous excerpts from primary source historical documents contextualize his works, while reviews of productions chronicle his performance history and reception. Shakespeare's works often served to convey simple truths, but they are also complex, multilayered masterpieces. Shakespeare drew on varied sources to create his plays, and while the plays are sometimes set in worlds before the Elizabethan age, they nonetheless parallel and comment on situations in his own era. Written with the needs of students in mind, this four-volume set demystifies Shakespeare for today's readers and provides the necessary perspective and analysis students need to better appreciate the genius of his work. This indispensable ready reference examines Shakespeare's plots, language, and themes; his use of sources and exploration of issues important to his age; the interpretation of his works through productions from the Renaissance to the present; and the critical reaction to key questions concerning his writings. The book provides coverage of each key play and poems in discrete sections, with each section presenting summaries; discussions of themes, characters, language, and imagery; and clear explications of key passages. Readers will be able to inspect historical documents related to the topics explored in the work being discussed and view excerpts from Shakespeare's sources as well as reviews of major productions. The work also provides a comprehensive list of print and electronic resources suitable for student research.
Download or read book Unconformities in Shakespeare s Early Comedies written by K. Smidt and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
