The setting of this play is projected into the near future when we might envisage a global pilot scheme to establish an ideal campus. But what could that be? In German there is a saying "Unter den Talaren ist der Muff von Tausend Jahren." Under the scholar's gown is the stale fluff of a thousand years. Can the new age campus retain the best of ancient tradition and liberate itself from much in that tradition which is in dire need of reform? The clash of personalities coincides with a clash of attitudes and philosophies. On a more personal level two ambitious members of the academic faculty contend for the hand of a young student, who happens to be the daughter of the Head of the English department. The student body is enraged by the imposition of a video-controlled surveillance system known as the BEAST, and, taking a lead from Shakespeare, they retreat to the green wood.

The word "Trump" in the title serves as a nexus for ideas, associations and thoughts, some of a purely personal nature, thus giving rise to a medley of forms, essays, dialogues that hang together in some way.

In this groundbreaking book one of the most original and compelling voices in contemporary Shakespeare criticism undertakes a detailed study of the ten extraordinary comedies Shakespeare wrote during his first decade as a dramatist: The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Love's Labour's Lost, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It and Twelfth Night. Through close readings of these plays Kiernan Ryan reveals Shakespeare's deepening disenchantment with his world and his dream of that world transfigured. Ryan engages with each comedy as a unique work of dramatic and poetic art, with its own distinctive concerns and critical challenges, paying special attention to its language and form. As the haunting vision shared by the plays emerges from Ryan's acute analysis of each of them, the book transforms our understanding and appreciation of Shakespearean comedy. Written in a lively, accessible style, Shakespeare's Comedies is essential reading not only for students and teachers, but also for anyone keen to consider these plays from a fresh perspective.

Drawing together scholars with a wide range of expertise across the early modern period, this volume explores the rich field of early modern comedy in all its variety. It argues that early modern comedy was shaped by a series of cultural transformations that included the emergence of the entertainment industry, the rise of the professional comedian, extended commentaries on the nature of comedy and laughter, and the development of printed jestbooks. It was the prime site from which to satirize a rapidly-changing world and explore the formation of new social relations around questions of gender, authority, identity, and commerce, amongst others. Yet even as it reacted to the novel and the new, comedy also served as a receptacle for the celebration of older social rituals such as May games and seasonal festivities. The result was a complex and contested mix of texts, performances, and concepts providing a deep tradition that abides to this day. Each chapter takes a different theme as its focus: form, theory, praxis, identities, the body, politics and power, laughter and ethics. These eight different approaches to early modern comedy add up to an extensive, synoptic coverage of the subject.

Published with academic researchers and graduate students in mind, this volume of the 'Shakespeare Survey' presents a number of contributions on the theme of Shakespeare's comedies, as well as the comedy in Shakespeare's other works.