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 89
... plays as ' Histories ' is a response to the theatrical and political fashions of the time , which Shakespeare's plays fulfilled in the process of also remak- ing them . The history plays are a genre , but not in exactly the same way ...
... plays as ' Histories ' is a response to the theatrical and political fashions of the time , which Shakespeare's plays fulfilled in the process of also remak- ing them . The history plays are a genre , but not in exactly the same way ...
Page 90
... play colours many of the events that happen in Henry V. Which is to say that the history plays require a kind of double consciousness in the audience of the individual play and of the longer historical narrative to which it refers . We ...
... play colours many of the events that happen in Henry V. Which is to say that the history plays require a kind of double consciousness in the audience of the individual play and of the longer historical narrative to which it refers . We ...
Page 104
Lawrence Danson. Chronicle History , Providential History , Shakespearian History Except that the Epilogue to Henry V ... plays about ( the future ) Henry VI . In doing so it explicitly raises a question about how to view the plays . So ...
Lawrence Danson. Chronicle History , Providential History , Shakespearian History Except that the Epilogue to Henry V ... plays about ( the future ) Henry VI . In doing so it explicitly raises a question about how to view the plays . So ...
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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