The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare's Comedies

Where did Shakespearean comedy come from? Where did it arrive? What makes it still relevant today? This comprehensive survey addresses these and many other questions, providing readers with a map of ShakespeareâEUR(TM)s comic styles, showing how he built on comedic conventions as he enriched the possibilities of the genre.

Penny Gay is Professor of English and Drama at the University of Sydney.

'... new historicism tends to read like a rebarbative coded message to the inmates of other North American graduate schools, whereas Gay's book strikes me as a balanced voice of experience and wisdom. ... Gay's is a book you might read without being compelled to, for the pleasure of learning more about plays that continue to work on the stage and on the page. ... obscure, reader-unfriendly work. Too many of us, in accepting a contract to write for a student or general audience, do not try hard enough to be clear and comprehensive, or even slip into passages of professional obscurity to show that we know we are slumming it. Such vanity is something Gay steers well clear of. ... She does theory with a light and relevant touch ... This is what literary criticism needs ...' Robert Phiddian, Literary Studies