Author: Leo Salingar
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1974
Total Pages: 372
ISBN-13: 9780521291132
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →For students of English and European literature, renaissance studies, comparative literature, drama and classics.
Author: Alexander Leggatt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2002
Total Pages: 260
ISBN-13: 9780521779425
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →An accessible, wide-ranging and informed introduction to Shakespeare's comedies, dark comedies and romances, first published in 2001.
Author: Melissa Emerson Walter
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 2019
Total Pages: 294
ISBN-13: 1487503644
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This is the first book to provide a full treatment of Shakespeare's literary and theatrical engagement with the Italian novella and female agency.
Author: Sudha Gopalakrishnan
Publisher:
Published: 1993
Total Pages: 184
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A comparative study of classical Indian and Western drama with special reference to comedy reveals interesting similarities and differences between the two in respect of aesthetic theory, theatric practice and elements of dramatic composition. The common ground between Western and Sanskrit theatre relates to the use of stage-devices like pantomime, off-stage voices, soliloquy and play within the play, as well as histrionic elements like dance and music, and the exaggerated costume and make up of the characters. But apart from these, Indian drama, as outlined in Natya Sastra and maintained by stage performances through the centuries is markedly different from the Western, because while the latter mostly depends on realistic devices the former is basically a stylized mode of theatre which caters to an idealized audience. In Western drama, the interest of the audience in watching a play lies in the effective rendering of the dialogue, so that the verbal text is of primary value. But in traditional Sanskrit dramatic practice, the actor is encouraged to resort to an elaborate method of improvisation, using vocal and /or gestural expression, supplemented by the appropriate movements of the face and other parts of the body as well as by musical accompaniment. The written text has therefore only a minimal importance here. The method of dramatic composition of the comedies in both Western and Sanskrit traditions also bears striking similarities and divergences. These may be seen in the methods of employing plot, situation and themes as well as in the creation of character and the use of language. In the present study, the comedies of Shakespeare and Bhasa have been selected for closer analysis, because they seem to encompass within their respective spheres a wide variety of levels and interpretations of Western and Indian comedy. The two dramatists also seem to share a common underlying philosophy of comedy, namely, a joyous involvement in the process of living.
Author: Cesar Lombardi Barber
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2012
Total Pages: 323
ISBN-13: 0691149526
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In this classic work, acclaimed Shakespeare critic C. L. Barber argues that Elizabethan seasonal festivals such as May Day and Twelfth Night are the key to understanding Shakespeare's comedies. Brilliantly interweaving anthropology, social history, and literary criticism, Barber traces the inward journey--psychological, bodily, spiritual--of the comedies: from confusion, raucous laughter, aching desire, and aggression, to harmony. Revealing the interplay between social custom and dramatic form, the book shows how the Elizabethan antithesis between everyday and holiday comes to life in the comedies' combination of seriousness and levity. "I have been led into an exploration of the way the social form of Elizabethan holidays contributed to the dramatic form of festive comedy. To relate this drama to holiday has proved to be the most effective way to describe its character. And this historical interplay between social and artistic form has an interest of its own: we can see here, with more clarity of outline and detail than is usually possible, how art develops underlying configurations in the social life of a culture."--C. L. Barber, in the Introduction This new edition includes a foreword by Stephen Greenblatt, who discusses Barber's influence on later scholars and the recent critical disagreements that Barber has inspired, showing that Shakespeare's Festive Comedy is as vital today as when it was originally published.
Author: Robert S. Miola
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 1994
Total Pages: 256
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book surveys Shakespeare's comedies, charting the influence upon them of the ancient playwrights, Plautus and Terence. Robert S. Miola analyses these sources, and places the comedies in their Renaissance context, as well as in the larger context of European theatre. Discovering new indebtedness, and discerning new patterns in previously attested borrowings, Shakespeare and Classical Comedy presents an integrated and comprehensive assessment of the complex interactions of the Classical, Shakespearean, and other Renaissance theatres. Robert S. Miola re-evaluates Plautus and Terence in the light of their Greek antecedents, and gives special attention to Renaissance translations and commentaries, Italian theorists, and playwrights, as well as contemporary dramatists such as Middleton, Jonson, Heywood, and Chapman. Four broad categories organize the discussion - New Comedic errors, intrigue, alazoneia (pretension), and romance - and each is illustrated by illuminating readings of individual Shakespearean plays. The author keeps in view Shakespeare's eclecticism, his habit of combining disparate sources and traditions, as well as the rich history of literary criticism and theatrical interpretation. The book concludes by discussing the presence of New Comedy in tragedy, in Hamlet and King Lear. Robert S. Miola's thoroughly researched book ranges over a vast amount of European drama, from Aristophanes to Beckett and Ionesco. It makes an important contribution to our understanding not only of Shakespeare and his foremost antecedents, but also of Renaissance theatre, and its complex adaptations of ancient texts and traditions.