'The course of true love never did run smooth' - so says Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and for more than 2000 years the problems faced by young men and women fighting to find and keep an appropriate sexual partner have been a theatrical staple. This book explores the shapes that Romantic Comedy has assumed from Greek New Comedy via Shakespeare to the present. Changing social values have helped to redefine the genre's traditional hetero-normativity, while the recent trend towards more fluid casting has opened up many romantic comedies to radical reinterpretations.
Organized chronologically to allow readers to trace the development of the form against changing societal norms, the book features a range of case studies of key works from the British tradition, including A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, Susanna Centlivre's A Bold Stroke for a Wife, Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer, Stanley Houghton's Hindle Wakes, Noël Coward's Private Lives, Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey, Ayub Khan-Din's East is East and David Eldridge's Beginning.
| ISBN: | 9781350183414 |
| Publication date: | 21st September 2023 |
| Author: | Trevor R Griffiths |
| Publisher: | Bloomsbury Methuen Drama an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 184 pages |
| Series: | Forms of Drama |
| Genres: |
Theatre studies Comedy and stand-up |
'The course of true love never did run smooth' - so says Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and for more than 2000 years the problems faced by young men and women fighting to find and keep an appropriate sexual partner have been a theatrical staple. This book explores the shapes that Romantic Comedy has assumed from Greek New Comedy via Shakespeare to the present. Changing social values have helped to redefine the genre's traditional hetero-normativity, while the recent trend towards more fluid casting has opened up many romantic comedies to radical reinterpretations.
Organized chronologically to allow readers to trace the development of the form against changing societal norms, the book features a range of case studies of key works from the British tradition, including A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, Susanna Centlivre's A Bold Stroke for a Wife, Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer, Stanley Houghton's Hindle Wakes, Noël Coward's Private Lives, Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey, Ayub Khan-Din's East is East and David Eldridge's Beginning.
Romantic Comedy features in the following genres: Theatre studies, Comedy and stand-up
Romantic Comedy is available in Paperback
Romantic Comedy was written by Trevor R Griffiths and published by Bloomsbury Methuen Drama an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing (UK)
Romantic Comedy has 184 pages
Yes it is part of Forms of Drama series