Northrop Frye on ShakespeareWell-known as a critic, Northrop Frye is also a renowned educator. This book, for the first time, allows us access to his classroom. Here he discusses Shakespeare's comedies, histories and tragedies, and introduces us to a new category - Shakespeare's romances, those glittering, frightening, magical plays of the playwright's later years. Dr. Frye presents lucid expositions of Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Richard II, Henry IV, Measure for Measure, Hamlet, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter's Tale, and The Tempest, relating each of these works to others in the Shakespeare canon so that by the end of the book new light has been shed on all of Shakespeare's plays. Within this framework, Frye discusses many of the central elements of Shakespearean drama - from the traditions of comedy and tragedy to the historical background of the plays, from imagery and patterning to characterization, from the use of myth, folklore, and the supernatural to the anthropological roots of Shakespeare's ideas. Northrop Frye on Shakespeare will be invaluable to any student of literature, but its clarity and accessibility will also attract anyone with an interest in Shakespearean drama. It is as useful to the playgoer as it is to the academic, and proves that literary criticism can be as amusing as it is rewarding. |
From inside the book
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... Juliet can only mumble something to the general effect that “ It must be all right if you say so : you're looking after these things . " If she hadn't seen Romeo , Juliet would probably have been talking in the same way to her daughter ...
... Juliet , for all her tender years and sheltered life , has had a considerably better education than simply a ... Juliet he turns out , to Mercutio's astonishment and delight , to be full of wit and repartee . “ Now art thou what thou art ...
... Juliet and takes so long to come to the point in delivering her message , the delay has something in it of teasing Juliet to get even . Not very logical , but who said the Nurse was logical ? Similarly when she laments the death of ...