Shakespeare's Festive Comedy: A Study of Dramatic Form and Its Relation to Social Custom

"A book ahead of its time. . . . revolutionized the ways that Shakespeareans thought of comedy in relation to its social setting—especially festive comedy." —James Shapiro, Columbia University

In this classic work, acclaimed Shakespeare critic C. L. Barber argues that Elizabethan seasonal festivals such as May Day and Twelfth Night are the key to understanding Shakespeare's comedies. Brilliantly interweaving anthropology, social history, and literary criticism, Barber traces the inward jour...