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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... earlier scenes where Portia and Nerissa , as onstage audience , directed and enhanced our perception of onstage per- formers . But then Shakespeare executes a major tonal shift as Antonio's interruption— " I am the unhappy subject of ...
... earlier in the play . He remains a rigid and uncompromising figure . Just as , earlier , he condemns others for their late - night license while he himself luxuriates in his imagina- tion , leaving Olivia sleeping on a day - bed as he ...
... earlier argu- ment about the importance of a Frye - Barber line of criticism and the opposition to that line . Much of the earlier criticism of Measure for Measure is character - based and only occasionally focused on comic structure ...
Contents
The Aggrandizement of Closure | 1 |
The Comic Pleasures | 22 |
three | 34 |
Copyright | |
6 other sections not shown