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A Study Guide to Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night
This Guide offers brief introductions to the composition, early performances, genre, structure and major characters of Shakespeare’s comedy. References are to M.M. Mahood’s Penguin edition introduced by Michael Dobson. (more…)
As You Like It: Two Approaches
The first approach is a traditional textual analysis of As You Like It, which tries not to deaden the comedy with too much earnestness. However while As You Like It appeals to all audiences, including those who enjoy on-stage comic action and rude jokes, it does have serious things to say about love, sex, marriage, morals and the clash of human temperaments.
“Approach Two,” livens things up by demonstrating that As You Like It invites interpretation as a witty attack on many of the conventions that governed love, marriage and literature in the middle and upper social levels of Shakespeare’s England.