Introduction

The present paper is but a revision of a previous one that was handed in on November 7^th, 2006 and presented in front of our classmates and Dr. Vicente Forés López, our “Curso monográfico de literatura inglesa: “Shakespeare through performance” professor, the same day.

The reason for writing this second paper on the same subject as the first one is simple and we think understandable. We felt that the first paper was handed in incomplete, and this happened because the time we were given for its writing, too short, and the organization if not lacking, at least chaotic. Also, our professor advised us to keep studying the same subject, to improve the paper we already had because the information we had given was insufficient or badly presented.

Given the fact that the time given for writing the first paper was rather short and the organization, as we have already said, chaotic, we decided to write a first draft of it, and the person in charge of doing it was Dana Cristea. Then the paper passed on to some of us, namely to Maria Clement Quesada, Victor Colon Garcia, Karla Diaz de Heredia Garcia and Maria Carmen Ferrando Oñate, who contributed with information that was not mentioned in the first draft. The presentation of this first paper was in charge of the above mentioned and of Rita Costell Chueca, as well as Claire Louise Young.

For the present paper we decided that the person who did not contribute with information in the first paper, that is Rita Costell Chueca will find the recurring patterns in The Taming of the Shrew, a task that our professor recommended us to do. Claire Louise Young will enlarge the information we had in the original paper about confusion, a subject which we consider we did not do justice to. Begoña Espert Sánchez as well as the above mentioned persons, will try to fit in the paper and the recurring patterns we have encountered, the characters of The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, characters which have been the subject for the first individual paper that we had to hand in on November 28^th, 2006.

Explained the methodology followed, we consider it necessary to also explain why we have chosen this theme, the recurrent patterns in Shakespearian comedies, as the theme of our paper. At first we chose another title for the paper, and we searched for information fitting the title “what makes a Shakespearian play a comedy”. Later we realized while reading critical books and on-line sources, that there are things that are repeated in more than one comedy, that there are some obvious reoccurring patterns in the comedies by William Shakespeare, hence deciding to write the paper about these recurrent patterns.

As we have mentioned above we have used many critical books, companions to Shakespeare, on-line articles about the subject that interested us, all of which are acknowledged throughout the paper, and as well as in the bibliography. We have also read many of William Shakespeare’s comedies, something without which we could not have written our paper, because how can one speak about a comedy or about various comedies without having read them. So, in the course of our paper we shall make reference to some of the following Shakespearian plays: A Midsummer Night’s Dream; All’s Well That Ends Well; As You Like It; Cymbeline; Love’s Labour’s Lost; Measure for Measure; The Merchant of Venice; The Merry Wives of Windsor; Much Ado about Nothing; Pericles, Prince of Tyre; The Taming of the Shrew; The comedy of Errors; The Tempest; Twelfth Night, or What You Will; Troilus and Cressida; The Two Noble Kinsmen; The Winter’s Tale. They are what we know as comedies (for further knowledge on what we call a comedy, please see the next chapter), although many critics would argue that Troilus and Cressida; Measure for Measure and All’s Well That Ends Well are “problem plays”, while Pericles, Prince of Tyre; The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest are “romances”. We shall make no distinction here and we may refer to any of the above plays.

The next chapter, although it may seem without relation to the others, gives a general introduction to the paper. It also was the introduction of the previous paper and we feel that it should not be lost, even if it guards little relation with the rest of the paper. Nevertheless, it pays homage to the genius of William Shakespeare, and we could not do less but to keep the next few pages present in this second paper.