Download or read book Shakespeare's Rhetoric of Comic Character written by Karen Newman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-11 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First published in 1985. In this revisionist history of comic characterization, Karen Newman argues that, contrary to received opinion, Shakespeare was not the first comic dramatist to create self-conscious characters who seem 'lifelike' or 'realistic'. His comic practice is firmly set within a comic tradition which stretches from Plautus and Menander to playwrights of the Italian Renaissance.