Shakespeare As A Dramatic Artist: With An Account Of His Reputation At Various Periods - Softcover

Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0371794854 ISBN 13: 9780371794852

Publisher: HardPress, 2021

Synopsis

Shakespeare As A Dramatic Artist: With An Account Of His Reputation At Various Periods by Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury provides a sweeping historical survey of Shakespeare as a dramatist and of how English critics have judged him from the Elizabethan era through the eighteenth century. The work traces two defining strands in Shakespearean reception: the classical-romantic controversy about the dramatic unities, the mixing of comic and tragic, and the representation of violence, and the later emergence of Shakespeare as a moralist and a master of dramatic art. Lounsbury surveys judgments by Jonson, Dryden, and Voltaire, analyzes the polemics of Johnson, Dennis, Gildon, and Addison, and examines the practice of altering Shakespeare’s plays by later adapters (Garrick, Tate, Colman, D’Avenant, Ravenscroft, and others). He argues that Shakespeare succeeds because he conforms to nature and art, not because he followed fashionable canons; his scene-building, character development, and ironic insight reveal a deep, unified vision. The book culminates in a reassessment of Shakespeare’s enduring moral and dramatic authority. It also engages with Lessing, Goethe, and the German reception, arguing for Shakespeare’s primacy as a universal dramatic artist.

Edition details

• Publisher: HardPress
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0371794854
• ISBN 13: 9780371794852
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 484