Romantic Comedy

The course of true love never did run smooth so says Lysander in A Midsummer Nights 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 genres 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 Nights Dream, Twelfth Night, Susanna Centlivres A Bold Stroke for a Wife, Oliver Goldsmiths She Stoops to Conquer, Stanley Houghtons Hindle Wakes, Nol Cowards Private Lives, Shelagh Delaneys A Taste of Honey, Ayub Khan-Dins East is East and David Eldridges Beginning.