Shakespeare and the Ends of Comedy"This is a congenial, lucidly written work, the product of careful thought and attention to performance." --Shakespeare Bulletin "... Jensen has done a service by reminding readers of the variety and richness of the comedy and comic devices in Shakespeare's plays." --Choice "The ear that Jensen brings to the plays themselves results in close readings that are always insightful and stimulate new questions." --English Language Notes "Here is a genuinely readable and enjoyable book... humane, balanced, unpolemical, good humored, and fundamentally sane." --Charles R. Forker "... Jensen has produced a sensitive and eminently readable book that will no doubt figure prominently in future attempts to understand Shakespeare's comic practice." --Shakespeare Yearbook Jensen questions a persistent critical emphasis that finds the meanings of Shakespeare's comedies in their endings. Analyzing The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, and Measure for Measure, he shows how much vitality is sacrificed when critics assume that "the end crowns the work." |
From inside the book
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... Portia and Nerissa that they have parted with their rings . At each of the play's crucial moments , in other words , Shakespeare designs matters in such a way that he distances his audience from the action , enabling us as readers or ...
... Portia's catalogue of unwelcome suitors . The Neapolitan Prince , the County Palentine , the French lord , Monsieur le Bon , Falconbridge , the Scottish lord , and the Duke of Saxony's nephew make up a gallery of stereotyped portraits ...
... Portia and Nerissa enjoy is like the shared mockery they relish at the expense of the failed suitors . It is even more like the shared assurance they possess as they watch Shylock entrap himself , insisting as he does on the very rigor ...
Contents
The Aggrandizement of Closure | 1 |
The Comic Pleasures | 22 |
three | 34 |
Copyright | |
6 other sections not shown