Shakespeare and the Traditions of Comedy/
by Leo Salingar
- Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974.
- x,356p.
1. The unfaithful mirror -- Comedy as celebration -- Character and plot -- 2. Medieval stage romances -- Early Elizabethan romances -- Medieval stage heroines -- Egeon and Apollonius -- Survivals of medieval staging -- 3. 'Errors' and deceit in classical comedy -- The trickster in classical comedy -- The trickster, continued -- 4. Fortune in classical comedy -- The wheel of fortune -- Fortune as trickster -- 5. Shakespeare and Italian comedy -- Three Italian comedies -- Double plots in Shakespeare -- 6. An Elizabethan playwright -- THe player in the play -- Marriages and magistrates.
This book relates Shakespeare's comedies to a broad European background. At the beginning and again at the end of his career, Shakespeare was attracted by a tradition of stage romances which can be traced back to Chaucer's time.
Shakespeare, William, -- 1564-1616 -- Comedies. Shakespeare, William, -- 1564-1616 -- Sources. Comedy -- History and criticism.