Shakespeare's comedies are among the world's great celebrations of love and romance. But for Shakespeare, the trials and tribulations of love become a subject for both laughter and sympathy, presented in a dramatic form that combines such diverse elements as high poetic imagination, probingly intelligent criticism and uproariously farcical popular entertainment.. "This is the complex image that Shakespeare: The Comedies seeks to project for its readers through detailed analysis of extracts from the four major comedies. Readers are invited, however, to see for themselves what goes on in the plays: methods are explained and further work suggested, so that they can use the tools displayed in the analyses to pursue and develop their own insights. A final section relating the comedies to the rest of Shakespeare's work, outlining some theories of comedy and summarizing the approaches of three modern critics, provides a context for more extended study of Shakespearean comedy.

Included Index