'Marriage as comic closure' by Lisa Hopskins

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  • Marriage as Comic Closure
    • Lisa Hopkins
    • What is it about?
      • Emphasises social bonds and continuity (unlike tragedy which focuses on the individual)
      • Explores marriage and its relation to comedy in the play
      • Comedy is expected at the end of Shakespearean comedy - Shakespeare frequently disrupted this expectation
      • Marriage is central to Shakespearean comedy
      • 'Marriage in Shakespeare's comedies'
    • Key Quotes
      • "despite the traditional view that marriage provides comic closure, this is, in fact, very rarely achieved"
        • Some characters achieve no closure - Antonio, Feste, Sir Andrew + Malvolio
      • "marriage is used as the mainspring of the comedy"
        • Comedy in doubling - 'Cesario, husband, stay!' 'Husband?'
      • "The audience is repeatedly encouraged to expect that the proceedings will be appropriately closed with a wedding"
      • "it focuses primarily on the experience of the group, as opposed to the individualist"
      • "used to provide comic closure"
        • "Cesario, come / For so you shall be while you are a man / But when in other habits you are seen / Orsino's mistress, and his fancy's queen"
      • "the spectator will be forced to question both the meaning of the events he or she has witnessed"
        • "If this were played upon a stage now, I would condemn it as an improbable fiction"

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