LibGuides: The World of William Shakespeare: Comedies

Shakespeare's Comedies

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Criticism on Shakespeare's Comedies in the HMCPL Catalog

William Shakespeare: Comedies & Romances by Harold Bloom, editor
Call Number: R 822.3 SHA WIL
ISBN: 0877546649
Publication Date: 1986
From the introduction: "Shylock is to the world of the comedies and romances what Hamlet is to the tragedies, and Falstaff to the histories: a represtnation so original as to be perpetually bewildering to us...Shylock is not beyond us in any way, and yet he resembles Hamlet and Falstaff in one crucial regard; he is a much more problematical representation than even Shakespeare's art could have intended."

William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure by Harold Bloom, editor
Call Number: 822.3 SHA WIL
ISBN: 0877549311
Publication Date: 1987
From the introduction: "'Measure for Measure' seems to cohere only as a kind of erotic romance, a very original kind. Though it achieves plausibility only within the parameters of its curious assumptions, those assumptions are not so much Elizabethan conventions as they are purely Shakespearean. If they seem not so curious to us, that is because we live in them still, because as mimetic conventions they have become our assumptions and help govern our expectations as to what it is that makes verbal representation convincing to us."
William Shakespeare's As You Lke It by Harold Bloom, editor
Call Number: R 822.33 SHA WIL
ISBN: 0877549222
Publication Date: 1988
From the introduction: "'As You Like It' is Rosalind's play as 'Hamlet' is Hamlet's. That so many critics have linked her to Hamlet's more benign aspects is the highest of compliments, as though they sensed that in wit, intellect, and vision of herself she truly is Hamlet's equal."
William Shakespeare's Much Ado about Nothing by Harold Bloom, editor
Call Number: R 822.33 SHA WIL
ISBN: 0877549346
Publication Date: 1988
From the introduction: "I think that 'Much Ado About Nothing' generates it highest humor, properly performed, precisely because Beatrice and Benedick understand their rituals all too well. Nor will age wither their youthful egotism; mutually supportive, it will last out their lives together."

AVL Articles on Shakespeare's Comedies

Edgecomb, Rodney Stenning. "'Problems Arising from the 'Great Reckoning in a Little Room' As You Like It III.iii." Classical and Modern Literature(Vol. 20, Issue 4). Gale Literature. 25 Aug. 2021.

Lee, Michelle. "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Shakespearean Criticism (Vol. 102). Gale Literature. 25 Aug. 2021.

Marshall, Cynthia. "Wrestling as play and game in As You LIke It." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 33.2 (1993): 265+. Gale Literature. 25 Aug. 2021.

Oliver, H. J. "Introduction." The Oxford Shakespeare: "The Taming of the Shrew,". Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982. 1-76. Rpt. in Shakespearean Criticism. Ed. Michael L. LaBlanc. Vol. 77. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Gale Literature. 25 Aug. 2021.

Penuel, Suzanne. "Castrating the creditor in The Merchant of Venice." Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 44.2 (2004): 255+.Gale Literature. 25 Aug. 2021.

Summers, Joseph H. "1. The masks of Twelfth Night." George Herbert Journal 16.1-2 (1992): 1+. Gale Literature. 25 Aug. 2021.