Alexander Leggatt

First published in 2001, 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. Individual chapters draw on contemporary politics, rhetoric, and the history of Shakespeare production. Written by experts in the relevant fields, the chapters frequently challenge long-standing critical assumptions.

The Cambridge Companion to Shakespearean Comedy

Karen Bamford

Many college students are familiar with the works of William Shakespeare but may know little about other playwrights of his era. This volume explores the compelling dramatic techniques and rich language found in a wide variety of both well-known and less-familiar Renaissance plays. A series of reading, performance, and research tools are outlined for teachers who wish to encourage students not only to understand the English Renaissance as a unique period of time but also to envision their own world from a fresh perspective.

Approaches to Teaching English Renaissance Drama

First published in 1989. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The History Plays and the Roman Plays

Shakespeare's Political Drama

While most critical writing on Jonson concentrates on the plays, poems or masques seen in isolation, this title, first published in 1981, ranges across the genres to explore Jonson’s vision as a whole. The author points to the inner connections that make of the rich variety of Jonson’s writing a single coherent body of work. We see Jonson exploring the relations between culture and society, the difficulties of ideal virtue in a far from ideal world, and above all the problems of art itself. Combining a wide-ranging discussion of Jonson’s interests with a detailed examination of his major works, this book provides a balanced critical introduction to one of the most complex and fascinating figures in English Literature.

His Vision and His Art

Ben Jonson

First published in 1987. This study removes some of the critical puzzles that Shakespeare's comedies of love have posed in the past. The author shows that what distinguishes the comedies is not their similarity but their variety - the way in which each play is a new combination of essentially similar ingredients, so that, for example, the boy/girl changes in The Merchant of Venice are seen to have a quite different significance from those in As You Like It.

Shakespeare's Comedy of Love

Study of various actors and directors presenting performances of Shakespeare's plays.

Second Edition

King Lear

Containing annotated extracts from key sources, this guide to William Shakespeare's Macbeth explores the heated debates that this play has sparked. Looking at issues, such as the representation of gender roles, political violence and the dramatisation of evil, this volume provides a way through the wealth of contextual and critical material that surrounds Shakespeare's text.

A Sourcebook

William Shakespeare's Macbeth

Professor of English Alexander Leggatt

Pt. 1:Shakespeare and comic tradition --Theories of comedy /David Galbraith --Roman comedy /Robert S. Miola --Italian stories on the stage /Louise George Clubb --Elizabethan comedy /Janette Dillon --Popular festivity /François Laroque --pt. 2:Shakespearean comedy --Forms of confusion /John Creaser --Love and courtship /Catherine Bates --Laughing at "others" /Edward Berry --Comedy and sex /Alexander Leggatt --Language and comedy /Lynne Magnusson --Sexual disguise and the theatre of gender /Barbara Hodgdon --Matters of state /Anthony Miller --The experiment of romance /Michael O'Connell.

Alexander Leggatt

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