The Comic in Shakespeare
Jul 2022 · Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Ebook
285
Pages
family_home
Eligible
info
About this ebook
Dr Johnson believed that Shakespeare was at his best in ‘comic scenes’, but it is a long time since anyone explained convincingly what in the plays was intended to make us smile or laugh. This book serves to remedy that situation by concentrating mainly, but by no means exclusively, on the seismic shift in the development of Shakespeare’s writing which took place after Will Kemp was replaced by Robert Armin as his theatre company’s professional clown. Without disdaining help from both old and recent theorists of comedy, this new book is written in a jargon-free prose accessible to all those who, academic or otherwise, are interested in Shakespeare’s plays. It challenges the age-old distinctions between high and low in comedy, and tracks Shakespeare through to the time when he was no longer finding the world so funny.
Dr Johnson believed that Shakespeare was at his best in ‘comic scenes’, but it is a long time since anyone explained convincingly what in the plays was intended to make us smile or laugh. This book serves to remedy that situation by concentrating mainly, but by no means exclusively, on the seismi...
Discover more
About the author
Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Kent, UK, David Ellis is the author of more than a dozen previous books. Three of these concern Shakespeare, but he has also written on the Romantics (Wordsworth, Byron, Stendhal), as well as D. H. Lawrence, and is the author of what was recently described by Howard Jacobson as the elegant and elegiac Memoirs of a Leavisite.
Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Kent, UK, David Ellis is the author of more than a dozen previous books. Three of these concern Shakespeare, but he has also written on the Romantics (Wordsworth, Byron, Stendhal), as well as D. H. Lawrence, and is the author of what was recently...
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
