Shakespeare's Rhetoric of Comic Character

Front Cover
Routledge, Oct 11, 2013 - Literary Criticism - 168 pages
First published in 1985.

In this revisionist history of comic characterization, Karen Newman argues that, contrary to received opinion, Shakespeare was not the first comic dramatist to create self-conscious characters who seem 'lifelike' or 'realistic'. His comic practice is firmly set within a comic tradition which stretches from Plautus and Menander to playwrights of the Italian Renaissance.

From inside the book

Contents

Introduction
1
Measure for Measure II ii 16287
7
2 Comic plot conventions in Measure for Measure
20
3 Menander and New Comedy
30
4 Plautus and Terence
42
5 The enchantments of Circe
57
Shakespeares early comedies
77
As You Like It and Twelfth Night
94
8 Mistaking in Much Ado
109
9 Shakespeares rhetoric of consciousness
121
Notes
129
Index of plays discussed
149
General index
151
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2013)

Karen Newman

Bibliographic information