Shakespeare And Comedy (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781904271444)

Comedy was at the centre of a critical storm that raged throughout the early modern period. Shakespeare's plays made capital of this controversy. In them he deliberately invokes the case against comedy made by the Elizabethan theatre haters. They are filled with jokes that go too far, laughter that hurts its victims, wordplay that turns to swordplay and aggressive acts of comic revenge. Through a detailed study which considers tragedies and histories as well as comedies, Maslen contends that Shakespeare's use of the comic mode is always calculatedly unsettling, and that this is part of what makes it pleasurable.

Author: Robert Maslen
ISBN-10: 1904271448
ISBN-13: 9781904271444
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Language: English
Published: 09/26/2005
Pages: 288
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.68lbs
Size: 7.83h x 7.53w x 0.54d