Shakespeare's Dramatic GenresOxford Shakespeare Topics provides students, teachers, and interested readers with short books on important aspects of Shakespeare criticism and scholarship. Each book is written by an authority in its field, and combines accessible style with original discussion of its subject. Notes and a critical guide to further reading equip the interested reader with the means to broaden research. The history of the genres, or kinds, of drama is one of contradictory traditions and complex cultural assumptions. The divisions established by the original edition of Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies (the First Folio, 1623) give shape to whole curricula; but, as Lawrence Danson reminds us in this lively book, there is nothing inevitable, and much unsatisfying, about that tripartite scheme. Yet students of Shakespeare cannot avoid thinking about questions of genre; often they are the unspoken reason why classrooms full of smart people fail to agree on basic interpretative issues. Danson's guide to the kinds of Shakespearian drama provides an accessible account of genre-theory in Shakespeare's day, an overview of the genres on the Elizabethan stage, and a provocative look at the full range of Shakespeare's comedies, histories, and tragedies. |
From inside the book
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Page 49
... characters derived from the Roman plays of Plautus and Terence , written in full awareness of the critical tradition of generic decorum . The prologue to Nicholas Udall's Ralph Roister Doister , for instance , promises to avoid ...
... characters derived from the Roman plays of Plautus and Terence , written in full awareness of the critical tradition of generic decorum . The prologue to Nicholas Udall's Ralph Roister Doister , for instance , promises to avoid ...
Page 71
... characters of tragedy , there is an oddly modular quality to the characters of comedy . Desdemona and Othello , Ophelia and Hamlet , Cordelia and Lear : no one has trouble remem- bering who should go with whom . But Viola , Olivia ...
... characters of tragedy , there is an oddly modular quality to the characters of comedy . Desdemona and Othello , Ophelia and Hamlet , Cordelia and Lear : no one has trouble remem- bering who should go with whom . But Viola , Olivia ...
Page 85
... characters to their ' pleasures ; | I am for other than for dancing measures ' ( 5. 4. 190-1 ) . Sebastian's loving friend Antonio in Twelfth Night , and the other solitary Antonio , who stakes his life for Bassanio in The Merchant of ...
... characters to their ' pleasures ; | I am for other than for dancing measures ' ( 5. 4. 190-1 ) . Sebastian's loving friend Antonio in Twelfth Night , and the other solitary Antonio , who stakes his life for Bassanio in The Merchant of ...
Contents
The Genres Staged | 30 |
Mr William Shakespeares Comedies | 57 |
History | 86 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
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