Leading scholar Albert Russell Ascoli traces the metamorphosis of Dante Alighieri - minor Florentine aristocrat, political activist and exile, amateur philosopher and theologian, daring experimental poet - into Dante, author of the Divine Comedy and perhaps the most self-consciously 'authoritative' cultural figure in the Western canon.
Don Quixote is a comedy, which could only have been written by the hitherto obscure genius later in life after he had suffered injury on the battlefield and was subject to periods of harsh confinement in prison. The comedy is bittersweet about this everyman who lives strictly by a code of ancient ethical ideals that inspire him to fits of lunacy, folly and madness. Lucid, indeed inspired, when the subject is anything but knight errantry, Quixote's commitment to his ideals brings him insult, injury, poverty and ridicule.It's a book that everyone must have in his shelve.
The Comedy of Errors (Bloom's Shakespeare Through the Ages)
In the Shakespearean play that most closely resembles farce, two sets of identical twins, each separated for years, arrive in Ephesus, setting off a madcap series of events and leaving a trail of confusion and mistaken identity in their wake. While evoking one of Shakespeare's recurring themes—the restorative power of love—this early work contains some of the playwright's developing insights on the human condition and presents a portrait of women's various roles in Elizabethan society.
Sue Townsend is an English novelist and playwright, best known as the author of the Adrian Mole books. Although her writing primarily combines comedy with social commentary, she has also written purely dramatic works.
