Shakespeare's Comic Theory

the long version

Building on a foundation of defined terminology and the critical ambience of Shakespearean comedy, Thomas Nelson proceeds to demonstrate through a detailed discussion of Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale and The Tempest his controlling thesis, that, contrary to a modern propensity for reductive systemization, "Shakespeare was not as interested as his readers in employing his plays as pegs on which to hang a series of 'meanings' in the traditional sociological, psychological, moral, or religious sense..." -- from book jacket.