What do you think?
Rate this book
Shakespeare's Comedies
Shakespeare's Comedies features all the scholarship and pedagogy of David Bevington's The Complete Works of Shakespeare in a genre-specific, paperback volume. Pulled from Bevington's popular and authoritative hardcover The Complete Works of Shakespeare , 5e, Shakespeare's Comedies and three other genre volumes– Shakespeare's Tragedies, Shakespeare's Histories, and Shakespeare's Romances and Poems– are also available for purchase on their own. Shakespeare's Comedies provides the same balanced editorial approach and proven apparatus that combine to make Bevington’s Complete Works the most accessible collection available. A prestigious editorial board provides state-of-the-art scholarship and interpretative balance on each play. In-depth historical coverage helps readers understand the cultural context behind each play, without dictating their interpretation of it. Extensive notes and glosses give readers the support they need to understand Elizabethan language and idiomatic expressions. For those who want all of Shakespeare's Comedies in one volume.
672 pages, Paperback
First published June 29, 2006
1 person is currently reading
18 people want to read
About the author
David Bevington
124 books7 followersDavid Bevington was an American literary scholar.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 10, 2018
About Bevington's Shakespeare in general: I like Bevington's best of all the student editions of Shakespeare. The introductions to individual plays are extremely insightful and well-written, giving you a concise overview of the play's themes and motifs and ending with a brief stage history. The general introduction is great too, and I find the footnotes to be the most useful for general readers of any edition: they tell you exactly what you need to know without cluttering up the page with extraneous detail. But I'm mostly here to throw out some of my impressions of the bard's plays.
The Comedy of Errors
Shakespeare's first comedy is also one of my favorites. Adapted from Plautus' Menaechmi--a play about identical twins separated at birth getting mistaken for each other--but with many improvements including the inclusion of identical servants, this play shows Shakespeare's mastery of comedy even at this early stage in his career. The way misunderstandings pile up, making everybody increasingly pissed-off and confused, is just hilarious. Not a very typically Shakespearean play in its characters or themes, but a very good one nonetheless.
Love's Labor's Lost
Shakespeare finds here the "romantic comedy" genre he would mine so well, but with mixed results the first time round. The play is entertaining enough, with plenty of sparkling banter, but hasn't held up as well as many of the bard's later comedies in this style.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
We see Shakespeare leaning here perhaps toward the path he would take in Romeo and Juliet, injecting some more serious drama into the romantic comedy genre, here by introducing a love triangle in which the titular gentleman vie for Silvia's love. Still, like Love's Labor's Lost, this is a less-remembered play. The one thing that most readers do remember is the troubling ending in which Silvia's "true" lover offers her to her would-be rapist by way of mending their friendship. Not a good look, guy!
The Taming of the Shrew
We're making our way into the major comedies now, though for my money Taming of the Shrew is the slightest of those. It's here that Shakespeare had the bright idea to combine a decidedly English pair of mismatched, perpetually at-odds "lovers" (male chauvinist Petruchio and equally headstrong "shrew" Kate) into his otherwise Italianate rom-com. The result is a much livelier piece than his previous two attempts, one that's provoked debate about its gender politics from Shakespeare's own time (in Fletcher's The Tamer Tamed Petruchio meets his match) to our own.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
The favorite Shakespeare play of many and certainly one of the bard's most essential comedies, Midsummer takes the rom-com into fantasy-land, with hijinks involving fairies, love potion, and a guy's head getting switched with a donkey's. The final scene, featuring a ridiculous play-within-the-play, might be the best comic moment in the canon.
The Merchant of Venice
Things get a shade darker and more serious in The Merchant of Venice. The gritty, legalistic world of Venice, in which the Jewish moneylender Shylock tries to get revenge against his antisemitic debtor Antonio by demanding the pound of flesh stipulated in his bond, is balanced against the fairy-tale world of Belmont, which features the beautiful and clever Portia and her suitors. Like Taming of the Shrew, this one remains controversial, though this time for its seeming antisemitism rather than sexism. But Shylock is a complex and at least somewhat sympathetic figure, as his famous "If you prick us, do we not bleed?" speech shows. Despite how troubling the play is on some levels, however, it really works wonders on the stage.
Much Ado about Nothing
Another of my favorite comedies, Much Ado brings back the idea of doubling a traditional pair of naive young lovers straight out of Italian romantic comedy with a war of the sexes between a couple who seemingly would rather kick than kiss each other. In my view, the concept is executed much more successfully here, though, with the will-they-won't-they romance between Beatrice and Benedick being both the funniest and most affecting courtship in Shakespearean comedy. This one is consistently hilarious on the stage and screen.
The Merry Wives of Windsor
A minor but still pleasant comedy, Merry Wives takes Falstaff, obviously a fan favorite from the Henry IV plays, out of his native English history play genre and plops him into a rom-com. The result is amusing enough but not one of Will's strongest efforts.
As You Like It
Another of Shakespeare's best-loved comedies, As You Like It boasts a witty, winsome heroine in Rosalind and one of his most famous speeches, Jaques' "All the world's a stage..." monologue. While it's not my favorite, it's definitely a major comedy and worth reading.
Twelfth Night; or, What You Will
The last of Shakespeare's "festive" romantic comedies revisits the idea of twins separated by a shipwreck from his Comedy of Errors, combining it with the cross-dressing antics of As You Like It to make one of the bard's most purely enjoyable romps.
All's Well That Ends Well
Shakespeare's last few comedies are considered "problem plays" by modern critics due to their tendency to frustrate audiences and combine some of the philosophical skepticism prominent in the tragedies he was writing at the same time with the mirth one expects from a comedy. All's Well, adapted from a story in Boccaccio's Decameron, is a fine play, with an appealing heroine in Helena and an amusing braggart-soldier type in Parolles. The problem is that the hero, Bertram, is such a sod that we don't actually want Helena to win him over in the end, so it's a bit of a letdown when she does.
Measure for Measure
But to my mind, All's Well was really just practice for Shakespeare's finest late comedy, Measure for Measure, which shares a lot of structural similarities with that play but takes its cynicism even further. More than almost any other Shakespeare play, this one explores the urban center's seedy underbelly and the thorny issue of how to control it. Its exploration of the hypocrisy of those who would police public morality is eternally relevant, but it's also just funny as hell, and in a different way from other Shakespearean comedies. The black humor here sometimes seems like something out of Monty Python, as when a condemned murderer gets out of being executed by being too drunk to be confessed; to the hangman's assistant who tries to get him out of bed by assuring him he will sleep all the sounder the next day for being hanged today, he replies stoutly "I will not die today for any man's persuasion."
Troilus and Cressida
Bevington's choice to put Troilus and Cressida here with the comedies is a strange one, as it appeared in the First Folio among the tragedies and retells the tale of a doomed romance set against the backdrop of the Trojan War which had been more memorably recounted by Chaucer. That's not to say that Shakespeare's treatment of the story is without interest; some of the speeches here are really first-rate, and the piece can work onstage as a bitter anti-war satire.
Reading recommendations:
I think everybody should read at the very least A Midsummer Night's Dream, Measure for Measure, and Much Ado about Nothing. Then, if you find yourself enjoying Shakespearean comedy in the slightest, I'd recommend going on to read the other major comedies: The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, and The Taming of the Shrew. Next I'd tackle the "problem plays" All's Well That Ends Well and Troilus and Cressida, along with The Comedy of Errors, by far the best of Shakespeare's early works in the genre. Finally, even Shakespeare's three weakest comedies, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Love's Labor's Lost, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, are worth reading if you have the leisure for it.
The Comedy of Errors
Shakespeare's first comedy is also one of my favorites. Adapted from Plautus' Menaechmi--a play about identical twins separated at birth getting mistaken for each other--but with many improvements including the inclusion of identical servants, this play shows Shakespeare's mastery of comedy even at this early stage in his career. The way misunderstandings pile up, making everybody increasingly pissed-off and confused, is just hilarious. Not a very typically Shakespearean play in its characters or themes, but a very good one nonetheless.
Love's Labor's Lost
Shakespeare finds here the "romantic comedy" genre he would mine so well, but with mixed results the first time round. The play is entertaining enough, with plenty of sparkling banter, but hasn't held up as well as many of the bard's later comedies in this style.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona
We see Shakespeare leaning here perhaps toward the path he would take in Romeo and Juliet, injecting some more serious drama into the romantic comedy genre, here by introducing a love triangle in which the titular gentleman vie for Silvia's love. Still, like Love's Labor's Lost, this is a less-remembered play. The one thing that most readers do remember is the troubling ending in which Silvia's "true" lover offers her to her would-be rapist by way of mending their friendship. Not a good look, guy!
The Taming of the Shrew
We're making our way into the major comedies now, though for my money Taming of the Shrew is the slightest of those. It's here that Shakespeare had the bright idea to combine a decidedly English pair of mismatched, perpetually at-odds "lovers" (male chauvinist Petruchio and equally headstrong "shrew" Kate) into his otherwise Italianate rom-com. The result is a much livelier piece than his previous two attempts, one that's provoked debate about its gender politics from Shakespeare's own time (in Fletcher's The Tamer Tamed Petruchio meets his match) to our own.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
The favorite Shakespeare play of many and certainly one of the bard's most essential comedies, Midsummer takes the rom-com into fantasy-land, with hijinks involving fairies, love potion, and a guy's head getting switched with a donkey's. The final scene, featuring a ridiculous play-within-the-play, might be the best comic moment in the canon.
The Merchant of Venice
Things get a shade darker and more serious in The Merchant of Venice. The gritty, legalistic world of Venice, in which the Jewish moneylender Shylock tries to get revenge against his antisemitic debtor Antonio by demanding the pound of flesh stipulated in his bond, is balanced against the fairy-tale world of Belmont, which features the beautiful and clever Portia and her suitors. Like Taming of the Shrew, this one remains controversial, though this time for its seeming antisemitism rather than sexism. But Shylock is a complex and at least somewhat sympathetic figure, as his famous "If you prick us, do we not bleed?" speech shows. Despite how troubling the play is on some levels, however, it really works wonders on the stage.
Much Ado about Nothing
Another of my favorite comedies, Much Ado brings back the idea of doubling a traditional pair of naive young lovers straight out of Italian romantic comedy with a war of the sexes between a couple who seemingly would rather kick than kiss each other. In my view, the concept is executed much more successfully here, though, with the will-they-won't-they romance between Beatrice and Benedick being both the funniest and most affecting courtship in Shakespearean comedy. This one is consistently hilarious on the stage and screen.
The Merry Wives of Windsor
A minor but still pleasant comedy, Merry Wives takes Falstaff, obviously a fan favorite from the Henry IV plays, out of his native English history play genre and plops him into a rom-com. The result is amusing enough but not one of Will's strongest efforts.
As You Like It
Another of Shakespeare's best-loved comedies, As You Like It boasts a witty, winsome heroine in Rosalind and one of his most famous speeches, Jaques' "All the world's a stage..." monologue. While it's not my favorite, it's definitely a major comedy and worth reading.
Twelfth Night; or, What You Will
The last of Shakespeare's "festive" romantic comedies revisits the idea of twins separated by a shipwreck from his Comedy of Errors, combining it with the cross-dressing antics of As You Like It to make one of the bard's most purely enjoyable romps.
All's Well That Ends Well
Shakespeare's last few comedies are considered "problem plays" by modern critics due to their tendency to frustrate audiences and combine some of the philosophical skepticism prominent in the tragedies he was writing at the same time with the mirth one expects from a comedy. All's Well, adapted from a story in Boccaccio's Decameron, is a fine play, with an appealing heroine in Helena and an amusing braggart-soldier type in Parolles. The problem is that the hero, Bertram, is such a sod that we don't actually want Helena to win him over in the end, so it's a bit of a letdown when she does.
Measure for Measure
But to my mind, All's Well was really just practice for Shakespeare's finest late comedy, Measure for Measure, which shares a lot of structural similarities with that play but takes its cynicism even further. More than almost any other Shakespeare play, this one explores the urban center's seedy underbelly and the thorny issue of how to control it. Its exploration of the hypocrisy of those who would police public morality is eternally relevant, but it's also just funny as hell, and in a different way from other Shakespearean comedies. The black humor here sometimes seems like something out of Monty Python, as when a condemned murderer gets out of being executed by being too drunk to be confessed; to the hangman's assistant who tries to get him out of bed by assuring him he will sleep all the sounder the next day for being hanged today, he replies stoutly "I will not die today for any man's persuasion."
Troilus and Cressida
Bevington's choice to put Troilus and Cressida here with the comedies is a strange one, as it appeared in the First Folio among the tragedies and retells the tale of a doomed romance set against the backdrop of the Trojan War which had been more memorably recounted by Chaucer. That's not to say that Shakespeare's treatment of the story is without interest; some of the speeches here are really first-rate, and the piece can work onstage as a bitter anti-war satire.
Reading recommendations:
I think everybody should read at the very least A Midsummer Night's Dream, Measure for Measure, and Much Ado about Nothing. Then, if you find yourself enjoying Shakespearean comedy in the slightest, I'd recommend going on to read the other major comedies: The Merchant of Venice, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, and The Taming of the Shrew. Next I'd tackle the "problem plays" All's Well That Ends Well and Troilus and Cressida, along with The Comedy of Errors, by far the best of Shakespeare's early works in the genre. Finally, even Shakespeare's three weakest comedies, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Love's Labor's Lost, and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, are worth reading if you have the leisure for it.
Displaying 1 of 1 review