Ruby Cohn

Glancing at Dramatists' Dialogue

From Shakespeare to Suzan-Lori Parks
Herausgeber: Caselli, Daniela; Simpson, Hannah

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

This book examines dramatic dialogue in English-language theatre, tracing verbal invention across four centuries from Shakespeare and Restoration comedy right up to contemporary English and American theatre. Published posthumously, this renowned theatre scholar's book considers English dramatic dialogue as exemplified in the verbal invention of particular plays. That invention is traced through puns, repetitions, adroit clichés, occasional neologisms, malapropisms, sound play and more or less recondite allusions. In eight chapters, Cohn offers close readings of monologue and dialogue in plays by William Shakespeare, William Wycherley, George Etherege, William Congreve, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, Edward Albee, Harold Pinter, David Mamet, Tom Stoppard, Sarah Kane, Mark Ravenhill, Caryl Churchill, Sam Shepard, Adrienne Kennedy and Suzan-Lori Parks. It's a fascinating text, written with Cohn's characteristic wit, warmth and lucidity, and offers both an authoritative introduction to theatre dialogue and a remarkable final addition to Cohn's scholarly legacy.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Methuen Drama
• Seitenzahl: 216
• Erscheinungstermin: 16. Oktober 2025
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 222mm x 145mm x 15mm
• Gewicht: 409g
• ISBN-13: 9781350425965
• ISBN-10: 1350425966
• Artikelnr.: 74696968

Autorenporträt

Ruby Cohn(1922 - 2011)was for 30 years at UC Davis, where she was a member of the comparative literature and theatre departments and affiliated with the English and French departments. She taught courses on modern and experimental drama, Shakespeare's legacies in modern drama, dramatic genres, and Samuel Beckett and his contemporaries. She was one of the foremost authorities on the work of Samuel Beckett and published a number of books on his work, including A Beckett Canon (2001).

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction (Daniela Caselli and Hannah Simpson)
Note on the Text (Daniela Caselli and Hannah Simpson)
Foreword (Ruby Cohn)
Chapter 1: Shakespeare's Dialogue in a Comedy and a Tragedy: Love's
Labour's Lost and Timon of Athens
Chapter 2: Restoration Genteel Comedies: William Wycherley's The Country
Wife, George Etherege's The Man of Mode, and William Congreve's The Way of
the World
Chapter 3: Beguiled by Wilde: Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being
Earnest, Tom Stoppard's Travesties, and Mark Ravenhill's Handbag
Chapter 4: Pinter Between Pauses
Chapter 5: Chameleon Caryl Churchill
Chapter 6: Erotic and Erratic Triangles: Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of
Virginia Woolf?, Samuel Beckett's Play, Harold Pinter's Betrayal, David
Mamet's Speed-the-Plow, and Sarah Kane's 4.48 Psychosis
Chapter 7: The Word is my Shepard
Chapter 8: Two Generations of Dialogic Imagination: Adrienne Kennedy and
Suzan-Lori Parks