The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare's ComediesWhy 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. |
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Page 3
... lady widow was in love with him, by counterfeiting a letter as from his lady, in general terms telling him what she liked best in him, and prescribing his gesture in smiling, his apparel, etc., and then when he came to practise, making ...
... lady widow was in love with him, by counterfeiting a letter as from his lady, in general terms telling him what she liked best in him, and prescribing his gesture in smiling, his apparel, etc., and then when he came to practise, making ...
Page 6
... ladies.Janette Dillonwrites,'It is withLylythat the exploration of love and its effects on lovers begins. We find the musings of lovers on their own feelings, the mockery of their folly by others, the careful plotting of the game of ...
... ladies.Janette Dillonwrites,'It is withLylythat the exploration of love and its effects on lovers begins. We find the musings of lovers on their own feelings, the mockery of their folly by others, the careful plotting of the game of ...
Page 10
... ladies (Love's Labour's Lost); the Players play for Claudius' court in Hamlet. In reality, most performances of Shakespeare's plays were inthe public theatre, where audiences were of all sorts andconditionsofmen–andwomen ...
... ladies (Love's Labour's Lost); the Players play for Claudius' court in Hamlet. In reality, most performances of Shakespeare's plays were inthe public theatre, where audiences were of all sorts andconditionsofmen–andwomen ...
Page 35
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Page 40
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Contents
1 | |
2 Farce | 16 |
3 Courtly lovers and the real world | 35 |
4 Comedy and language | 58 |
5 Romantic comedy | 71 |
6 Problematic plots and endings | 103 |
7 Afterlives | 124 |
Conclusion | 138 |
Further reading | 141 |
Notes | 143 |
Index | 151 |
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Common terms and phrases
actors All’s Antonio audience audience’s Bassanio Beatrice and Benedick behaviour Bertram Biron blank verse Branagh’s briefly Cambridge Introduction Celia century characters Claudio clown Comedy of Errors comic commedia commedia dell’arte conventional courtly Cymbeline disguised Don Pedro dromio Duke Elizabethan emotional English Falstaff farce female fiction fight figure film final finally find first fool gender genre Gentlemen of Verona hath Helena Hero heroine Jaques jester joke Katherina King ladies language laugh laughter Lord Love’s Labour’s Lost lovers Lucio male Malvolio marriage masculine merry Midsummer Night’s Dream Mistress offers Olivia Orlando Parolles performance Petrarchan Petruchio play’s plot Portia productions Pyramus Pyramus and Thisbe reflects rhetoric role romantic comedy Rosalind scene sexual Shakespeare Shakespeare’s play Shakespearean comedy Shrew Shylock social soliloquy song speak specifically speech stage story Taming theatre theatrical There’s thou tragedy Twelfth Night Viola witty woman women wooing words young
Popular passages
Page 54 - Shylock, we would have moneys : ' you say so ; You, that did void your rheum upon my beard And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur Over your threshold : moneys is your suit. What should I say to you ? Should I not say ' Hath a dog money ? is it possible A cur can lend three thousand ducats...
Page 53 - How like a fawning publican he looks ! I hate him for he is a Christian; But more for that in low simplicity He lends out money gratis, and brings down The rate of usance here with us in Venice. If I can catch him once upon the hip, I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.
Page 48 - Lovers, and madmen, have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, Are of imagination all compact. One sees more devils than vast hell can hold ; That is, the madman : the lover, all as frantic, Sees Helen's beauty in a brow of Egypt...
Page 25 - I will be master of what is mine own. She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house, My household stuff, my field, my barn, My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything...
Page 56 - The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ; The motions of his spirit are dull as night, And his affections dark as Erebus : Let no such man be trusted.
Page 45 - Be kind and courteous to this gentleman ; Hop in his walks, and gambol in his eyes ; Feed him with apricocks and dewberries, -. With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries. The honey-bags steal from the humble-bees, And for night-tapers crop their waxen thighs, And light them at the fiery glow-worm's eyes...
Page 64 - The endeavour of this present breath may buy That honour, which shall bate his scythe's keen edge, And make us heirs of all eternity.
Page 7 - But besides these gross absurdities, how all their plays be neither right tragedies, nor right comedies: mingling kings and clowns, not because the matter so carrieth it: but thrust in clowns by head and shoulders, to play a part in majestical matters, with neither decency nor discretion.
Page 104 - ... is! my gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. — Where be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the table on a roar? Not one now, to mock your own grinning? quite chop-fallen? Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that. — Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing. HOR. What's that, my lord? HAM. Dost thou think Alexander...