The Cambridge Companion To Shakespearean Comedy

This is an accessible, wide-ranging, and informed introduction to Shakespeare's comedies and romances. Rather than taking each play in isolation, the chapters trace recurring issues, suggesting both the continuity and the variety of Shakespeare's practice, and the creative use he made of the conventions he inherited. The first section puts Shakespeare in the context of classical and Renaissance comedy and comic theory, the work of his Elizabethan predecessors, and the traditions of popular festivity. The second section traces a number of themes through Shakespeare's early and middle comedies, dark comedies, and late romances, establishing the key features of his comedy as a whole and illuminating particular plays by close analysis.