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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... Rosalind's knowledge of magic , or whether we take some more mundane explanation and see the representation of the god as merely that , a device contrived by the heroine , the event still stands for something beyond itself . That is ...
... Rosalind is to depart within ten days and to come no nearer to the court than twenty miles upon penalty of death . “ If you outstay the time , " declares the Duke , " upon mine honor , / And in the greatness of my word , you die " ( 1.3 ...
... Rosalind ' on their barks " ( 364 , 359-61 ) . Subsequent scenes continue the pattern . Touchstone's address to ... Rosalind's rebuke of Phebe generates comic delight for both her onstage audi- ence ( Corin and Celia ) and a theatre ...
Contents
The Aggrandizement of Closure | 1 |
The Comic Pleasures | 22 |
three | 34 |
Copyright | |
6 other sections not shown