Shakespeare's Comedies and Histories:  Topics for Study and Discussion

• The metatheatrical nature of Shakespeare's plays.
• Rites of passage, conflicts between children and their parents. [Marjorie Garber's Coming of Age in Shakespeare (1981) is a useful book on this topic.]
• Rhetoric and language.
• Conflicting views of love and marriage.
• Shakespeare's dramatization of a "green" or "holiday" world--a "space that is provided by a temporary freedom from the pressures of a real social world . . . [that] allows characters to 'play' at solutions which could (we imagine) resolve the impediments that real life imposes on happiness" (G.K. Hunter, OHEL 6, p. 389).  [See also C.L. Barber's Shakespeare's Festive Comedy (1959) on this topic.]
• Economic themes that extend beyond the marketplace and raise questions about the value of life and love.
• Different views of political authority, divine right vs. Machiavellian.
• The king's two bodies.
• The prince or king as an actor.
• The prince's prerogative of pardon.
• The duties and responsibilities of a prince.