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AN INTRODUCTION TO SHAKESPEARE'S COMEDIES By the same author GEORGE ELIOT: MIDDLEMARCH: A CASEBOOK (editor) UNOFFICIAL SELVES: CHARACTER IN THE NOVEL FROM DICKENS TO THE PRESENT DAY THE ENGLISH NOVEL OF HISTORY AND SOCIETY, 1940-80 PAUL SCOTT: IMAGES OF INDIA SHELLEY: SHORTER POEMS AND LYRICS: A CASEBOOK (editor) AN INTRODUCTION TO SHAKESPEARE'S COMEDIES PATRICK SWINDEN M © Patrick Swinden 1973 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1973 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First edition 1973 Reprinted 1979, 1985 Published by MACMILLAN EDUCATION LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Swinden, Patrick An Introduction to Shakespeare's comedies. 1. Shakespeare, William - Comedies I. Title 822.3 '3 PR2981 ISBN 978-1-349-01753-9 ISBN 978-1-349-01751-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-01751-5 Preface I make two claims for this book. It is short, and it is what its title proclaims it to be. Brevity is the soul of wit, and to write about Shakespeare's comedies without wit would go a long way towards defeating the object of the exercise. I hope this book increases the reader's enjoyment as well as his understanding of Shakespeare. Since the chapters are short he will be able to take time off to test the judgements they contain against another reading of the appro­ priate play, or part of a play. Because this book is an introduction to the comedies, it does not assume that its readers will have read widely within the vast range of Shakespeare scholarship and criticism. It is assumed only,that the principal plays have been read or seen on the stage. When a critic's name is mentioned, I try to explain the view he takes of the play under discussion, in so far as this promotes understanding of the argument that is being advanced. One more word before the acknowledgements. I have not seen fit to enter into a discussion about the nature of comedy. My business is with the plays, not with ideas of a general nature which can be apprehended through them, and I have rarely found a critic who has not bogged down his argument about a particular play when he has ventured into the quicksands of this sort of definition. In my opening chapter I do have some­ thing to say about what is distinctive about Shakespeare's comedies. On the wider issue of what is distinctive about comedy itself, I would make just three tentative observations. A work of art that is comic usually ends happily. Except where it is satirical, the aesthetic delight it provokes in its audience is usually un­ mixed with critical reservations. Some of the time, it makes us laugh; and even if it doesn't make us laugh, it makes us happy. vi Preface I should be prepared to say that to the extent that these properties apply to a play, it is comic; to the extent that they do not apply it is not comic. I am not prepared to be more precise than that. There are two books which I think are very helpful in com­ plementing what I have to say about the comedies. The first is F. E. Halliday, A Shakespeare Companion, from which I have not felt ashamed to borrow useful information about the plays. The second is C. L. Barber, Shakespeare's Festive Comedy, the most valuable commentary I have read on the early and middle comedies. I owe to Professor Barber much of my understanding of 'where to start\ and recommend to my readers that they consult his book for evidence, where they feel that my comments on staging, festivity, audience response are insufficient. Other debts are listed in the text or in the short bibliography at the end of the book. I should like to mention two more personal debts, to D. J. Palmer and J. Norton Smith. I have also to thank my wife who, as always, has contributed much to my understanding of the subject and to whatever grace there is in my expression of it. Mrs Nancy Walsh and Mrs Shelagh Aston corrected and typed the manuscript with their customary speed and efficiency. August 1973 P.S. Contents PREFACE \' APPROXIMATE ORDER OF COMPOSITION OF SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS viii A NOTE ON DATES AND TEXTS ix I The Spirit of Shakespearean Comedy I 2 The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentlemen of Verona 22 3 Love's Labour's Lost 38 4 A Midsummer Night's Dream 51 5 The Merchant of Venice 65 6 Falstaff 77 7 Much Ado about Nothing and AU's Well that Ends Well 88 8 As r ou Like It 110 9 Twelfth Night 125 10 Measure for Measure 139 II The Winter's Tale 155 12 The Tempest 166 FURTHER READING ISO INDEX 185 APPROXIMATE ORDER oF CoMPOSITION oF SHAKESPEARE's WoRKS PERIOD COMEDIES HISTORIES TRAGEDIES I584 The Comedy of Errors 1,2,3HenryVI Titus Andronicus The Taming of the Shrew Richard III 1 The Two Gentlemen of King John Verona I592 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- venus and Adonis } Love's Labour's Lost Rape of Lucrece poems 1594 A Midsummer Night's Richard II Romeo and Juliet Dream II The Merchant of Venice 1 Henry IV The Merry Wives of Windsor 2 Henry IV Much Ado About Nothing As You Like it Henry V I599 Twelfth Night Julius Caesar Troilus and Cressida Hamlet Measure for Measure Othello III All's Well That Ends Well Timon of Athens King Lear Macbeth Antony and Cleopatra Coriolanus 16o8 Pericles IV Cymbeline The Winter's Tale 1613 The Tempest Henry VIII A Note on Dates and Texts The edition of Shakespeare's plays which comes most readily to hand is that of Peter Alexander, published by Collins in I 95 I. Since it is also a very good edition I have used it throughout, in spite of the occasional preference I have entertained for the reading of a part of one or other of the plays in a separate edition under the New Cambridge, Arden, Signet and Penguin imprints. This makes for a simplification I feel is desirable in a book of this kind. Another matter I have simplified is the dates of the plays. Often it is not possible for scholars to provide a definite date for a Shakespeare play, and in any case complications must arise from the time lapse between the writing, production, and printing of separate (and sometimes very different) versions of a play. On occasion Shakespeare appears to have adapted a play to suit a different occasion from that of its first production (see my comment on A Midsummer Night's Dream), in which case one has to bear in mind two separate dates for a single play. If Shakespeare wrote other plays between the date of original composition and the date of revision, then each of them might be deemed either earlier or later, depending on the scholar's or editor's or critic's view of the importance of the revision. Clearly we cannot worry overmuch about these matters in an introduction to the comedies. I have felt justified in taking over Alexander's chronology, which I reproduce opposite. It has the advantage of specifying only approximate dates and, by providing separate columns for comedies, histories and tragedies, an approximate sequence also. I should mention the three assumptions which acceptance of Alexander's dates has allowed me to make, and which not every critic would agree with: first, that The Taming of the Shrew follows immediately after The Comedy of Errors; X A Note on Dates and Texts second, that A Midsummer Night's Dream was written later than Romeo and Juliet; and third, that All's Well that Ends Well was written later than Measure for Measure. None of these assump­ tions, I think, affects the substance of my argument about the plays concerned. .

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