William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

The present book aims at making Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice more comprehensible to the common reader. Beginning with the life and works of Shakespeare, the book provides a scene-wise critical summary of the play so that, as the reader casts his eyes over them, he becomes familiar with the common critical views about the individual scenes themselves. It has numerous citations from the text so that even if the reader is not familiar with it, he will have a chance of reading Shakespeare's poetry. The analyses of the different elements of drama are accompanied with the views of renowned critics. This latter feature makes the book all the more useful to teachers as well as students. Along with the recent critical views, the classical theories about comedies as well as Elizabethan conventions have been lucidly and briefly explained so that the student may not find any difficulty in understanding them. A brief analysis according to classical Sanskrit dramaturgy has also been included. Important questions have also been given so as help in further consideration of literary text. A Select Bibliography and Index completes the book. The book is highly readable, self-contained and comprehensive; it will undoubtedly prove an invaluable reference book to both students and teachers of English literature.

Ratri Ray is a retired University Professor and Head of the Deptt. of English, Patna University. As a student she had a unique career, for she had been awarded three gold medals for her B.A. results and two more for her M.A. results. She obtained her Ph.D. degree in 1981, her field of work being the little-known nineteenth-century poet, T.L. Beddoes. Later, after two decades of extensive and intensive studies, she obtained the D.Litt. degree, the field this time being the comparative study of two mystical poets, Francis Thompson and Nishikanto, a Bengali poet. Her studies of six Shakespearean plays according to the Rasavada had been serialised during the 80s and 90s in the cultural periodical Mother India, published from Pondicherry. She has published numerous research articles in literary journals and anthologies all over India. One of these contributions, a serialised study of 28 articles on the element of myth in Sri Aurobindo's poetry is shortly to be published in the book form. At present her research articles on the plays of Sri Aurobindo studied in the light of Rasavada are being serialised in Srinvantu, a periodical published from Kolkata.