About the Book:

The Cambridge Companion to Shakespearean Comedy 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 in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespearean Comedy frequently challenge long-standing critical assumptions:

• Chapters devoted to themes across several plays rather than one chapter per play

• Broad interpretation of comedy, to include late romances like The Tempest and 'problem' plays like Measure for Measure

• Pays full attention to literary and cultural contexts

What people say:

"13 essays of high quality...." — Bibliotheque d'Humanisme & Renaissance

"This companion is invaluable to scholars of Shakespeare, early modern drama and theories of comedy. Wide ranging and eclectic in style and its appeal is far-reaching." — Renaissance Journal

About the Author:

Alexander Leggatt is professor emeritus of English at University College, University of Toronto. A holder of the Guggenheim and Killam fellowships, he has given lectures and conference papers in several countries around the world. In 1995 he received an Outstanding Teaching Award from the University of Toronto Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and in 1998 received the Faculty Award in the University of Toronto Alumni Awards of Excellence. In 2005 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.