Please note: In order to keep Hive up to date and provide users with the best features, we are no longer able to fully support Internet Explorer. The site is still available to you, however some sections of the site may appear broken. We would encourage you to move to a more modern browser like Firefox, Edge or Chrome in order to experience the site fully.

Supporting your high street Find out how »
Shakespeare's Practical Jokes : An Introduction to the Comic in His Work, Hardback Book

Shakespeare's Practical Jokes : An Introduction to the Comic in His Work Hardback

Hardback

Item not Available

Description

There is a mountain of work on Shakespeare's comedies but very little on what, in all the plays, can be described as comic.

In this book that topic is approached via a number of practical joke episodes, some of them well known - the deceptions Hal and Poins practice on Falstaff, the tricking of Malvolio or Parolles - the others a little less so (the "Induction" to The Taming of the Shrew, for example).

In order to define more closely the many different kinds of comedy Shakespeare can find in the practical joke, comparisons are made with the use of the beffa in both Boccaccio and later Italian writers, and with similar episodes from the work of Jonson.Frequent references are also made to practical jokes as they occur in later literature or in our current popular culture and, throughout the book, there is a running argument with Freud and Bergson, still always cited (surprisingly enough) as the two chief authorities on the comic.

David Ellis is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Kent at Canterbury.

Information

£53.95

Item not Available
Item not Available
Sign in to add to wishlist
 
Free Home Delivery

on all orders

 
Pick up orders

from local bookshops

Information