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.
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
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