Overview

Shakespeare studies have been dominated by theoretical approaches derived from extra-literary disciplines: Marxist, Feminist, Cultural and Queer. This work examines Shakespeare's comedies through a nineteenth-century lens, arguing that the plays reveal Shakespeare's personal prejudices.

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After over thirty years of politicizing, ideologizing, and deconstructing Shakespeare and literature in general, the [author's] unabashed return to questions of aesthetic nature in regards to Shakespeare's comedy is refreshing and much needed. (Prof. Magdalena Gilewicz California State University) Of the many philosophical issues raised by [the author's] 'conceptual design' perhaps the most important are those concerning the relationship between Being and Becoming. As Westerners we tend to think dualistically: things are male or female, black or white. As we see it, immutable Being is one reality, while mutable Becoming is quite another. Eternity is an aspect of Being; time is an aspect of Becoming. Comedy, however, reflects quite the opposite view. The endings of Shakespeare's comedies, and all comedy, suggest that Being and Becoming do not stand in a dualistic relationship. Their relationship is clear in the Upanishads and other Eastern texts, but rarely apparent in our own. We tend to prioritize objectifiable things and wonder more about the flesh than the spirit. It is the experience of that other reality, however, that not only unites the comic characters at the end of Shakespeare's comedies but transmutes an attentive audience. (Dr Benilde Montgomery Dowling University)

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