Overview

Problem Plays' has been an awkward category for those Shakespeare plays that don't fit the conventional groupings. Expanding from the traditional three plays to six, the book argues that they share dramatic structures designed intentionally by Shakespeare to disturb his audience by frustrating their expectations.

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9780230277618

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Because of its lucidity, clarity, and textually focused detail, the discussion is ideal for undergraduates, which is not to undervalue its scholarship . . . Margolies's insistence upon the importance of emotional response contributes usefully to a renewed critical interest in aesthetics and performance in early modern studies. - New Theatre Quarterly Shakespeare's Irrational Endings offers an unparalleled history of both the concept and status of problem plays. As well as the traditional trio, Margolies includes Much Ado About Nothing, The Merchant of Venice, and Othello in the 'problem play' category. These six works, Margolies argues, are designed to unsettle and worry Shakespeare's audiences by offering them appropriate formal outcomes marriages or deaths without the expected emotional release. - Notes and Queries

'The book is an important contribution to the debate about what constitutes a Shakespearean 'problem play', how we address the problems that they raise, and how they fit within the overall canon. There has been considerable debate about which plays should be categorised as 'problem plays' ever since the term arose in the work of Boas in the nineteenth century and Tillyard in the twentieth. I have no doubt that this is a book that will be widely adopted by undergraduate and general readers, theatre-goers and theatre-makers.' - Simon Barker, University of Lincoln, UK

Margolies's insistence upon the importance of emotional response contributes usefully to a renewed critical interest in aesthetics and performance in early modern studies. - New Theatre Quarterly

Because of its lucidity, clarity, and textually focused detail, the discussion is ideal for undergraduates, which is not to undervalue its scholarship ... Margolies's insistence upon the importance of emotional response contributes usefully to a renewed critical interest in aesthetics and performance in early modern studies. - New Theatre Quarterly Shakespeare's Irrational Endings offers an unparalleled history of both the concept and status of problem plays. As well as the traditional trio, Margolies includes Much Ado About Nothing, The Merchant of Venice, and Othello in the 'problem play' category. These six works, Margolies argues, are designed to unsettle and worry Shakespeare's audiences by offering them appropriate formal outcomes marriages or deaths without the expected emotional release. - Notes and Queries

Because of its lucidity, clarity, and textually focused detail, the discussion is ideal for undergraduates, which is not to undervalue its scholarship . . . Margolies's insistence upon the importance of emotional response contributes usefully to a renewed critical interest in aesthetics and performance in early modern studies. - New Theatre Quarterly Shakespeare's Irrational Endings offers an unparalleled history of both the concept and status of problem plays. As well as the traditional trio, Margolies includes Much Ado About Nothing, The Merchant of Venice, and Othello in the 'problem play' category. These six works, Margolies argues, are designed to unsettle and worry Shakespeare's audiences by offering them appropriate formal outcomes marriages or deaths without the expected emotional release. - Notes and Queries

Author Information

DAVID MARGOLIES Emeritus Professor of English at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. He has published widely on Shakespeare and popular culture, notably Novel and Society in Elizabethan England and Monsters of the Deep: Social Dissolution in Shakespeare's Tragedies.

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