SOURCE: “The Difficulties of Closure: An Approach to the Problematic in Shakespearian Comedy,” in Comedy from Shakespeare to Sheridan, edited by A. R. Braunmuller and J. C. Bulman, pp. 113-28, University of Delaware Press, 1986.

In the essay that follows, Howard challenges theories of comic structure which assert that Shakespeare's comedies inevitably conclude with the restoration of social order and the harmonizing of disruptive or contradictory elements. Focusing on the final scenes of The Taming of the Shrew, Measure for Measure, and The Merchant of Venice, Howard proposes that in these scenes Shakespeare interrogates comic conventions to demonstrate the hazards audiences will encounter if they ignore or suppress features of a play that cannot be reconciled with a single, all-inclusive interpretation.

For those of us schooled on the work of C. L. Barber and Northrop Frye, the phrase “Shakespearian comedy” is probably forever linked in our minds with “green...