Description
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.
About the Author
Kent Cartwright is Professor Emeritus and former Chair of the Department of English of the University of Maryland. His teaching and scholarship have focused on sixteenth-century British literature, especially drama, and on late medieval British literature. He has also written on the status of the undergraduate English major. He has edited The Comedy of Errors, for The Arden Shakespeare, Third Series (Bloomsbury, 2017). His other books include Theatre and Humanism: English Drama in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge University Press, 1999) and Shakespearean Tragedy and Its Double: The Rhythms of Audience Response (Penn State University Press, 1991). He is editor of A Companion to Tudor Literature (Blackwell, 2010) and the author of numerous articles on Shakespeare and Renaissance drama. He has served as president of the Association of Departments of English (USA) and as a trustee of the Shakespeare Association of America.
Reviews
The achievement of this erudite, persuasive and compelling book makes comedy into a meaningful critical language that can be exported to other areas of Shakespeare's career, and also to comedies by other early modern writers. Scholars and teachers of Shakespeare, comedy and all forms of drama will find much of value here. * Steve Mentz, Emotions: History, Culture, Society *
Like all Kent Cartwright's work, this is a deeply researched, beautifully written, and thoughtful - as well as thought-provoking - book. Its solid research ranges widely in areas of early modern thought and culture too often now regarded with a certain, default, impatience...Cartwright's detailed reading of the comedies recovers what is so often lost in the solemn ideological and materialist discussions to which they are often subjected: they are funny...This book calls us to rethink our reductiveness and acknowledge that we may all be enchanted, and in the enchantment of art, by which we discuss the more removed mysteries, find ourselves when no man was his own. But howsoever, strange and admirable. * Charles Moseley *
Kent Cartwright's new book goes a long way in elucidating the forms of Shakespeare's comic instinct for "enchantment" in the classic comedies, yet offers a number of hints as to why enchantment is such serious business. The book is excellent: fully informed by wide reading in theories of comedy generally and studies of Shakespearean comedy in particular; illuminating in its concentration upon the characteristics of the comedies; and helpful in its illustrative readings of actual plays. * Moreana *
Kent Cartwright's thought-provoking study of this dramatic kind is thus a welcome contribution to Shakespearean scholarship. * Goran Stanivukovic, Renaissance et Reforme 46.1 *
Book Information
ISBN 9780198868897
Author Kent Cartwright
Format Hardback
Page Count 262
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 1g
Dimensions(mm) 241mm * 166mm * 21mm
About the Author
Kent Cartwright is Professor Emeritus and former Chair of the Department of English of the University of Maryland. His teaching and scholarship have focused on sixteenth-century British literature, especially drama, and on late medieval British literature. He has also written on the status of the undergraduate English major. He has edited The Comedy of Errors, for The Arden Shakespeare, Third Series (Bloomsbury, 2017). His other books include Theatre and Humanism: English Drama in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge University Press, 1999) and Shakespearean Tragedy and Its Double: The Rhythms of Audience Response (Penn State University Press, 1991). He is editor of A Companion to Tudor Literature (Blackwell, 2010) and the author of numerous articles on Shakespeare and Renaissance drama. He has served as president of the Association of Departments of English (USA) and as a trustee of the Shakespeare Association of America.
Reviews
The achievement of this erudite, persuasive and compelling book makes comedy into a meaningful critical language that can be exported to other areas of Shakespeare's career, and also to comedies by other early modern writers. Scholars and teachers of Shakespeare, comedy and all forms of drama will find much of value here. * Steve Mentz, Emotions: History, Culture, Society *
Like all Kent Cartwright's work, this is a deeply researched, beautifully written, and thoughtful - as well as thought-provoking - book. Its solid research ranges widely in areas of early modern thought and culture too often now regarded with a certain, default, impatience...Cartwright's detailed reading of the comedies recovers what is so often lost in the solemn ideological and materialist discussions to which they are often subjected: they are funny...This book calls us to rethink our reductiveness and acknowledge that we may all be enchanted, and in the enchantment of art, by which we discuss the more removed mysteries, find ourselves when no man was his own. But howsoever, strange and admirable. * Charles Moseley *
Kent Cartwright's new book goes a long way in elucidating the forms of Shakespeare's comic instinct for "enchantment" in the classic comedies, yet offers a number of hints as to why enchantment is such serious business. The book is excellent: fully informed by wide reading in theories of comedy generally and studies of Shakespearean comedy in particular; illuminating in its concentration upon the characteristics of the comedies; and helpful in its illustrative readings of actual plays. * Moreana *
Kent Cartwright's thought-provoking study of this dramatic kind is thus a welcome contribution to Shakespearean scholarship. * Goran Stanivukovic, Renaissance et Reforme 46.1 *
Book Information
ISBN 9780198868897
Author Kent Cartwright
Format Hardback
Page Count 262
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 1g
Dimensions(mm) 241mm * 166mm * 21mm
