Shakespeare's Rhetoric of Comic Character

<p>First published in 1985.<br><br> In this revisionist history of comic characterization, Karen Newman argues that, contrary to received opinion, Shakespeare was not the first comic dramatist to create self-conscious characters who seem 'lifelike' or 'realistic'. His comic practice is firmly set within a comic tradition which stretches from Plautus and Menander to playwrights of the Italian Renaissance.</p> Introduction; Chapter 1 The inward springs; Chapter 2 Comic plot conventions in Measure for Measure; Chapter 3 Menander and New Comedy; Chapter 4 Plautus and Terence; Chapter 5 The enchantments of Circe; Chapter 6 ‘And all their minds transfigur’d’; Chapter 7 Magic versus time; Chapter 8 Mistaking in Much Ado; Chapter 9 Shakespeare’s rhetoric of consciousness;