Table of Contents

Introduction: Aristotle, Jonson, Shakespeare

Chapter 1: The Poetics and comedy

Part I

Chapter 2: Comic error and the hoax

Chapter 3: "Laid flat" in the "flame and height of their humours": Exposure in Jonson

Chapter 4: Shakespeare’s exposure of "seeming"

Part II

Chapter 5: Indignation Chapter 6: Jonson’s shifting "furor poeticus"

Chapter 7: "Kill Claudio": Indignation and pity in Shakespeare

Part III

Chapter 8: Catharsis

Chapter 9: "Checked by strength and clearness": Jonson’s comic catharsis

Chapter 10: The "strange course" of Shakespeare’s comic catharsis

Conclusion

Bibliography

About the Author

Jonathan Goossen is Associate Professor in the Department of English at Ambrose University in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.