Shakespeare and the comedy of enchantment / Kent Cartwright.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cartwright, Kent, 1943- author.

Contributor:

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.

Horace Howard Furness Memorial Library (University of Pennsylvania)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616--Criticism and interpretation.

Shakespeare, William.

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. Plays--Selections.

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616.

Magic in literature.

Humorous plays.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

xii, 247 pages ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2021.

Summary:

"Shakespeare and the Comedy of Enchantment argues that enchantment constitutes a key emotional and intellectual dimension of Shakespeare's comedies. It thus makes a new claim about the rejuvenating value of comedy for individuals and society. Shakespeare's comedies orchestrate ongoing encounters between the rational and the mysterious, between doubt and fascination, with feelings moved by elements of enchantment that also seem a little ridiculous. In such a drama, lines of causality become complex, and even satisfying endings leave certain matters incomplete and contingent--openings for scrutiny and thought. In addressing enchantment, the book takes exception to the modernist vision of a deterministic 'disenchanted' world. As Shakespeare's action advances, comic mysteries accrue--uncanny coincidences; magical sympathies; inexplicable repetitions; psychic influences; and puzzlements about the meaning of events--all of whose numinous effects linger ambiguously after reason has apparently answered the play's questions. Separate chapters explore the devices, tropes, and motifs of enchantment: magical clowns who alter the action through stop-time interludes; structural repetitions that suggest mysteriously converging, even opaquely providential destinies; locales that oppose magical and protean forces to regulatory and quotidian values; desires, thoughts, and utterances that 'manifest' comically monstrous events; characters who return from the dead, facilitated by the desires of the living; play-endings crossed by harmony and dissonance, with moments of wonder that make possible the mysterious action of forgiveness. Wonder and wondering in Shakespeare's and other comedies, it emerges, become the conditions for new possibilities. Chapters refer extensively to early modern history, Renaissance and modern theories of comedy, treatises on magical science, and contemporaneous Italian and Tudor comedy."-- Publisher website.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: My Argument in a Nutshell

Theories of Comedy and the Rational Dimension

Enchantment and Shakespearean Comedy

The Comic Surplus

Renaissance Comedy, Magic, and Medievalism

Shakespearean Comedy and Present-Day Criticism

Coda: Playgoing, Reading, and Response

1. Clowns, Fools, and Folly

Criticism and the Marginal Clown

The Clown as Magical

Costume

Surplus

Qualities of Being

Stop-Time

Paradox

Utopianism

Dark Magic

The Clown's Transformative Influence on Other Characters

The Clown's Critical Influence on the Action

Bottom and the Moral Center

2. Structural Doubleness and Repetition

Analogy, Sympathetic Magic, and Causation

Patterns of Structural Doubleness in Twelfth Night

Static Repetitions

Fatedness, Opacity, Possibility

Manic Repetitions

Negative and Positive Enchantment

Structural Repetition in Other Comedies

Romantic Comedy and Providence

3. Place, Being, and Agency

Measurable and Magical Geographies

Shakespearean Comedy and the Fascination with Italy

"a paradise inhabited by devils"

"transform me then"

Criticism and the Dialectics of Comic Geography

The Regulative, the Protean, and Their Discontents

The Magic of Arden Forest

Geography and Agency

The Comedies `Other Places'

4. The Manifestation of Desire (Be Careful What You Wish For)

Telepathic Entrances and the Concept of Manifestation

The Values of Manifestation

Manifested Objects

Characters Called Forth

Literary Contexts: Early Drama and Romance

Early Drama

Prose Romance

5. The Return from the Dead

The Comic Business of Death

Dramatic and Critical Contexts

The Value of the Motif: Three Questions and a Little History

Zombies in Action and Comic New Life

New Life and Its Doubts

Return and Desire

Returning in the Late Comedies

Secular Spiritualism and Medieval Remnants

6. Ending and Wondering

Harmony and Dissonance

Comic Endings in Renaissance Theory and Practice

Exclusion in the Ending of The Merchant of Venice

Delusion in Much Ado About Nothing

Enraged Affection, Horrible Love

Love as Reciprocal and Mysterious

Not Knowing

The Problem of Forgiveness

Wondrous Forgiveness

Unmerited Forgiveness

A Comedy of Unforgiveness.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 215-235) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Horace Howard Furness Memorial Fund.

Other Format:

Electronic version: Cartwright, Kent, 1943- Shakespeare and the comedy of enchantment.

ISBN:

9780198868897

0198868898

OCLC:

1260819883