Books by Alexander Leggatt

This is the first book to survey comprehensively the field of Elizabethan and Jacobean citizen comedy This book follows recurring themes and motifs, through a variety of plays by many authors from the moralizing comedies of the boys' companies.

Recovers the acting, production and performance values of the public theatre of Jacobean London. Leggatt relates this drama to the popular culture of the day, concluding with a close study of four important plays, including King Lear.

Introduction to English Renaissance comedy explores the interconnected themes of politics, magic and sex in a number of representative comedies by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. It ranges across the Elizabethan, Jacobean and Caroline periods, covering both public and private theatres, emphasising the eclectic, experimental nature of this comedy. -- .

A study that removes some of the critical puzzles that Shakespeare's comedies of love have posed in the past. It shows that what distinguishes the comedies is not their similarity but their variety - the way in which each play is a new combination of essentially similar ingredients.

This book should be of interest to students and teachers of Shakespearean literature.

Through a study of ten modern stage and screen productions of 'King Lear', this book examines the way performance and interpretation are bound together, and shows how different performances have illuminated the contradictions in this play. The updated second edition has new chapters on Ian Holm's television performance, and Akira Kurosawa's 'Ran'. -- .