Play Reviews: Believe What You Will, Thomas More, Speaking like Magpies, as You like it, Twelfth Night, the Comedy of Errors, a Midsummer Night's Dream, the Tempest, Pericles, Prince of Tyre, the Winter's Tale, Henry IV, Tamburlaine, as You like it, Much Ado about Nothing, as You like it, the Tempest, La Tempête, Richard III, La Tragique histoire d'Hamlet, Prince de Danemark [Hamlet], La Nuit des rois [Twelfth Night], Viol (Schändung), Le Songe d'une nuit d'été

This chapter investigates how Shakespeare exploits the possibilities of popular song to foreground lyric’s capacity to condense affect, to model the absorption of his audiences, and to engage with conflicts over ‘the common’—the push of the common-as-vulgar and the pull of the common-as-universal. At the same moment that song collections are attempting to sort out elite lyric from low broadside, Shakespeare repeatedly draws on these lesser lyrics to ask his audiences what they share and what they do not with these singers and songs, and the warrants, real and fantastical, for those identifications and distinctions. These lyric dynamics are most apparent in the comedies (A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night) but also play a key role in history (2 Henry IV), tragedy (Hamlet), and romance (The Winter’s Tale).

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Play Reviews: A Satire of the Three Estates, Coriolanus, Edward II, a Mad World, My Masters, as You like it, Othello, Pericles, as You like it, the Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night, Richard III, Twelfth Night, Harry the Sixth / the Houses of York and Lancaster / the True Tragedy of the Duke of York, Macbeth, a Midsummer Night's Dream, the Tempest, Indian Tempest

Cahiers Élisabéthains A Journal of English Renaissance Studies ◽

10.7227/ce.84.1.7 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 84 (1) ◽

pp. 53-84

Author(s):

Lucy R. Hinnie ◽

Anne-Kathrin Marquardt ◽

Peter J. Smith ◽

James Stredder ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Richard Iii ◽

Twelfth Night ◽

Midsummer Night's Dream ◽

The Tempest ◽

As You Like It ◽

Edward Ii ◽

A Midsummer Night's Dream

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The Return from the Dead

10.1093/oso/9780198868897.003.0006 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 148-175

Author(s):

Kent Cartwright

Keyword(s):

Early Modern ◽

Early Modern Period ◽

Merchant Of Venice ◽

The Winter's Tale ◽

Twelfth Night ◽

Winter's Tale ◽

Much Ado About Nothing ◽

The Merchant Of Venice ◽

The Tempest ◽

The Dead

Chapter 5 argues for the lingering power of medieval values and imaginative forms in their relation to characters who seemingly return from the dead. Criticism has not recognized the extent of this motif in the comedies or the way that it figures in their ongoing actions as well as their endings. Among other values, return from the dead showcases the efficacy of desire on the part of those bereft and the sense of radiant new life that the revenant sometimes acquires. While this motif is usually oriented towards Shakespeare’s late romances, such as Pericles, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest, it is strikingly pervasive, influential, and mysterious in the earlier comedies, as suggested by revenant characters ranging from Two Gentlemen’s Julia to All’s Well’s Helen. The chapter draws examples extensively from the comedies, including Much Ado About Nothing, The Merchant of Venice, and Twelfth Night. The motif lends uncanny power, emotional and intellectual depth, and memorability to Shakespearean comedy. It likewise helps us understand the persistence of medieval values into the early modern period.

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