Design and Closure in Shakespeare's Major Plays: The Nature of Recapitulation: 123 (American University Studies Series 4: English Language and Literature) - Tapa dura

-Bache redefines the best way to read Shakespeare's plays - creatively, alertly, openmindedly - by illustrating their patterns and systems of structure. His recapitulative approach, a disarmingly direct avenue to the poet's never-ending complexity, is completely accessible to scholars, students, actors and producers whose proper business is to discover and share the plays' depth of meaning. He treats the plays as poetry 'and' theatre. This is a potential milestone in literary criticism for the study and the stage.- (Jerry H. Bledsoe, Executive Director, The Virginia Shakespeare Festival)"

Shakespeare must be studied in order to be understood: explication precedes appreciation. This incisive study of Shakespeare's greatest plays concentrates on those strategies of design and closure that serve Shakespeare's intention and meaning. The examination of recapitulation, the quintessential feature of Shakespeare's art, reveals Shakespeare's dramatic thought in all its complexity. The ultimate value of this study is that it enables us to appreciate, not just the individual plays, but the shape and significance of the Shakespeare canon.