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 59
... happens to ordinary folks is trivial , hence the stuff of comedy , while what happens to their rulers is the grand work of tragedy - may not be overturned but it is unsettled by the wide social range of Shakespeare's casts of characters ...
... happens to ordinary folks is trivial , hence the stuff of comedy , while what happens to their rulers is the grand work of tragedy - may not be overturned but it is unsettled by the wide social range of Shakespeare's casts of characters ...
Page 60
... happen to them as that the one thing necessary in history and tragedy does not happen to them . Shake- speare's ... happens : if the main character or characters are dead at the end of the play , it's an unhappy ending and we call ...
... happen to them as that the one thing necessary in history and tragedy does not happen to them . Shake- speare's ... happens : if the main character or characters are dead at the end of the play , it's an unhappy ending and we call ...
Page 90
... happen in Henry V. Which is to say that the history plays require a kind of double consciousness in the audience of the ... happens in a world more thickly imagined , more thoroughly populated with vividly recognized members of diverse ...
... happen in Henry V. Which is to say that the history plays require a kind of double consciousness in the audience of the ... happens in a world more thickly imagined , more thoroughly populated with vividly recognized members of diverse ...
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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