Tragicomedy is one of the most important dramatic genres in Renaissance literature, and the essays collected here offer stimulating new perspectives and insights, as well as providing broad introductions to arguably lesser-known European texts. Alongside the chapters on Classical, Italian, Spanish, and French material, there are striking and fresh approaches to Shakespeare and his contemporaries - to the origins of mixed genre in English, to the development of Shakespearean and Fletcherian drama, to periodization in Shakespeare's career, to the language of tragicomedy, and to the theological structure of genre. The collection concludes with two essays on Irish theatre and its interactions with the London stage, further evidence of the persistent and changing energy of tragicomedy in the period. Contributors: SARAH DEWAR-WATSON, MATTHEW TREHERNE, ROBERT HENKE, GERAINT EVANS, NICHOLAS HAMMOND, ROS KING, SUZANNE GOSSETT, GORDAN MCMULLAN, MICHAEL WINMORE, JONATHAN HOPE, MICHAEL NEILL, LUCY MUNRO, DEANA RANKIN.

This timely collection of essays consolidates and advances the critical discussion of an important literary genre and its cultural and historical significance. The contributions to the volume are consistently lively and impressive. [.] This is a volume which expands and challenges our reading of early modern tragicomedy in thoughtful and unexpected ways.'

Source: Review of English Studies