'In this highly original discussion, J. F. Bernard provides a comprehensive analysis of Shakespeare's distinctive understanding of melancholia. Working with a range of classical and early modern sources, he reveals a complex tension in the comedies between melancholy as disease and the melancholy temperament as a powerful resource for creativity.'
Michael D. Bristol, McGill University
Shakespearean comedy showcases an extraordinary reliance on melancholy that ultimately reminds us of the porous demarcation between laughter and sorrow. This richly contextualised study of Shakespeare's comic engagement with sadness contends that the playwright rethinks melancholy through comic theatre and, conversely, re-theorises comedy through melancholy. In fashioning his own comic interpretation of the humour, Shakespeare distils an impressive array of philosophical discourses on the matter, from Aristotle to Robert Burton, and as a result transforms the theoretical afterlife of both comedy and melancholy. The book suggests that the deceptively potent sorrow at the core of plays such as The Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night or The Winter's Tale influences modern accounts of melancholia elaborated by Sigmund Freud, Judith Butler and others. What's so funny about melancholy in Shakespearean comedy? It might just be its reminder that, behind roaring laughter, one inevitably finds the subtle pangs of melancholy.
J. F. Bernard is Assistant Professor at Champlain College.
Cover image: Court Jester Stanczyk, Jan Matejko, 1862 © akg-images / Erich Lessing
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ISBN 978-1-4744-1733-4
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Inhaltsverzeichnis
Acknowledgements; Series Editor's Preface; 1. What's so Funny about Humours? Melancholy, Comedy and Revisionist Philosophy; 2. Comic Symmetry and English Melancholy; 3. Melancholic Dissonance and the Limits of Psycho-Humouralism; 4. Melancholic Ambience at the Comic Close; 5. Melancomic Time in Late Shakespeare; 6. The Philosophical Afterlives of Shakespearean Melancholy; Works Cited; Index.
