Shakespeare S Comedies

Author : Grant W. Smith
Publisher : Vernon Press
Page : 371 pages
File Size : 55,5 Mb
Release : 2021-09-07
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781648892707

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Names as Metaphors in Shakespeare’s Comedies by Grant W. Smith Pdf

'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].

Author : Penny Gay
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2008-04-07
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 1139469770

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The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare's Comedies by Penny Gay Pdf

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.

Author : Jeanne Arthur
Publisher : Archway Publishing
Page : 612 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2023-09-18
Category : Literary Collections
ISBN : 9781665740463

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Shakespeare's Comedies by Jeanne Arthur Pdf

These translations of Shakespeare's comedies stand on their own so that they may be read quickly and easily eliminating the need to search for the meaning of every second word but they are supplemented by supporting explanations of the world in which Shakespeare lived for those who are curious about it. Jeanne Arthur’s translations make Shakespeare accessible to the ordinary person. She hopes that they will make the fun and warmth of Shakespeare's comedies live in contemporary Western culture once again for many more people.

Author : Kiernan Ryan
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 304 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2020-04-21
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781137075109

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Shakespeare's Comedies by Kiernan Ryan Pdf

In this groundbreaking book one of the most original and compelling voices in contemporary Shakespeare criticism undertakes a detailed study of the ten extraordinary comedies Shakespeare wrote during his first decade as a dramatist: The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love's Labour's Lost, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It and Twelfth Night. Through close readings of these plays Kiernan Ryan reveals Shakespeare's deepening disenchantment with his world and his dream of that world transfigured. Ryan engages with each comedy as a unique work of dramatic and poetic art, with its own distinctive concerns and critical challenges, paying special attention to its language and form. As the haunting vision shared by the plays emerges from Ryan's acute analysis of each of them, the book transforms our understanding and appreciation of Shakespearean comedy. Written in a lively, accessible style, Shakespeare's Comedies is essential reading not only for students and teachers, but also for anyone keen to consider these plays from a fresh perspective.

Author : Michael Mangan
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 318 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2014-06-06
Category : Drama
ISBN : 9781317895046

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A Preface to Shakespeare's Comedies by Michael Mangan Pdf

This is an informative and interesting guide to the comedies of love - The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, Love's Labour's Lost, A Midsummer Nights Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like it and Twelfth Night - which were written in the early part of Shakespeare's career. As well as supplying dramatic and critical analysis, this study sets the plays within their wider social and artistic context. Michael Mangan begins by considering the social function of laughter, the use of humour in drama for handling social tensions in Elizabethan and Jacobean society and the resulting expectations the audience would have had about comedy in the theatre. In the second section he discusses the individual plays in the light of recent critical and theoretical research. The useful reference section at the end gives the reader a short bibliographic guide to key historical figures relevant to a study of Shakespeare's comedies and a detailed critical bibliography.

Author : Kevin Otos
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 169 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2023-06-23
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781000889314

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Acting and Directing Shakespeare's Comedies by Kevin Otos Pdf

Acting and Directing Shakespeare’s Comedies: Key Lessons outlines a clear, effective process for acting Shakespeare’s comedies. This book lays out core principles and useful exercises that help the reader better understand, expereince, and implement Shakespeare's comedic design. Building off of modern acting methods as well as contemporary Clown, classical Commedia, and verse-speaking techniques, the author guides the reader toward interpretive and performance choices that are original, justified, and entertaining. Included are clear examples and detailed case studies that illuminate and reenforce these key lessons. This accessible book is for actors, directors, students of Shakespeare, and those who want a fuller, richer awareness of the possibilities within Shakespeare’s comedies and a clear, pragmatic process for creating those performances.

Author : Magdalena Cieslak
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 289 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2019-04-19
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781498563758

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Screening Gender in Shakespeare's Comedies by Magdalena Cieslak Pdf

When adapting Shakespeare's comedies, cinema and television have to address the differences and incompatibilities between early modern gender constructs and contemporary cultural, social, and political contexts. Screening Gender in Shakespeare’s Comedies: Film and Television Adaptations in the Twenty-First Century analyzes methods employed by cinema and television in approaching those aspects of Shakespeare's comedies, indicating a range of ways in which adaptations made in the twenty-first century approach the problems of cultural and social normativity, gender politics, stereotypes of femininity and masculinity, the dynamic of power relations between men and women, and social roles of men and women. This book discusses both mainstream cinematic productions, such as Michael Radford's The Merchant of Venice or Julie Taymor's The Tempest, and more low-key adaptations, such as Kenneth Branagh's As You Like It and Joss Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing, as well as the three comedies of BBC ShakespeaRe-Told miniseries: Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew, and A Midsummer Night's Dream. This book examines how the analyzed films deal with elements of Shakespeare's comedies that appear subversive, challenging, or offensive to today's culture, and how they interpret or update gender issues to reconcile Shakespeare with contemporary cultural norms. By exploring tensions and negotiations between early modern and present-day gender politics, the book defines the prevailing attitudes of recent adaptations in relation to those issues, and identifies the most popular strategies of accommodating early modern constructs for contemporary audiences.

Author : Bart van Es
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 144 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2016-03-24
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9780191034961

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Shakespeare's Comedies: A Very Short Introduction by Bart van Es Pdf

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.

Author : Larry S. Champion
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 260 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 1970
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 0674271416

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The Evolution of Shakespeare's Comedy by Larry S. Champion Pdf

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.

Author : Karen Bamford
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
Page : 345 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2008-12-01
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781442690554

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Shakespeare's Comedies of Love by Karen Bamford Pdf

Borrowing its title from renowned scholar Alexander Leggatt's landmark 1974 study, Shakespeare's Comedies of Love is a tribute to a critic who has shaped the way the world understands Shakespeare and his comedies. To help celebrate his distinguished career as a teacher and scholar, this collection of essays presents a wide range of new work on the Bard's comedies. The contributors cover diverse areas of inquiry, including the use of the comedies as a source of women's empowerment in nineteenth-century America; civic drama in Elizabethan London; male anxiety about women in the comedies; anti-Semitism in The Merchant of Venice; as well as some key productions of Shakespeare's comedies. Rich in detail and broad in scope, Shakespeare's Comedies of Love is a celebration of Leggatt's distinguished career, and an enduring collection of work on the world's most famous writer.

Author : Elliot Krieger
Publisher : Springer
Page : 190 pages
File Size : 42,5 Mb
Release : 2015-12-22
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781349046546

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A Marxist Study of Shakespeare’s Comedies by Elliot Krieger Pdf

Author : L. Giese
Publisher : Springer
Page : 229 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2016-04-30
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781137095169

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Courtships, Marriage Customs, and Shakespeare's Comedies by L. Giese Pdf

Loreen L. Giese's study of over 5000 important folios of court depositions contemporary with Shakespeare's plays demonstrates the complex ways those plays participate in and comment upon their culture, rather than stand apart from it. Both the court records and the plays present women as agents who are capable of challenging their traditional roles.

Author : Victor Cahn
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 119 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2017-08-14
Category : Education
ISBN : 9781475838008

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Introducing Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Romances by Victor Cahn Pdf

This stimulating and accessible book is intended for instructors at the junior high school, high school, and undergraduate levels who present some of Shakespeare’s most familiar works to students who are largely unfamiliar with them. Acclaimed teacher of drama Victor L. Cahn begins with a general introduction, then examines seven of Shakespeare’s plays: THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, TWELFTH NIGHT, RICHARD II, HENRY IV, PART 1, and THE TEMPEST. With attention always directed towards inspiring student interest and response, Professor Cahn provides an overview or “spine” for each work, then proceeds scene by scene, focusing on salient characters, details of language, and major themes. The volume not only is entertaining and clear, but also raises provocative points of interpretation as well as numerous questions for discussion. Underlying the project is the conviction that although the plays are most effective in performance, they can nonetheless prove compelling in the classroom, where students can appreciate that although these works are set in a distant time and place, their issues and implications remain universal.

Author : William Shakespeare
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 774 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 1858
Category : Electronic
ISBN : CORNELL:31924096785161

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Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, Tragedies, and Poems by William Shakespeare Pdf

Author : William Shakespeare
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 86 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 1898
Category : Electronic
ISBN : BNC:1001933371

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The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare Pdf