Dr White examines the ways in which Shakespeare uses formal conventions from romance throughout his writing career, especially in giving formal completion to a play without forfeiting the ''open-ended'' sense of life''s complexity. In his romantic comedies these conventions are modified to imply that the cosy womb of marriage is not the end of lovers'' lives; in the ''problem'' comedies they are used to challenge the artifice of the comic ending; in some tragedies they are used to provide an ideal of fulfilment which has been destroyed by the tragic events - and in the last plays or ''romances'' they are used to invoke the full sense of life''s continuing comprehensiveness.

Dr White examines the ways in which Shakespeare uses formal conventions from romance throughout his writing career, especially in giving formal completion to a play without forfeiting the ''open-ended'' sense of life''s complexity. In his romantic comedies these conventions are modified to imply that the cosy womb of marriage is not the end of lovers'' lives; in the ''problem'' comedies they are used to challenge the artifice of the comic ending; in some tragedies they are used to provide an ideal of fulfilment which has been destroyed by the tragic events - and in the last plays or ''romances'' they are used to invoke the full sense of life''s continuing comprehensiveness.

Dr White examines the ways in which Shakespeare uses formal conventions from romance throughout his writing career, especially in giving formal completion to a play without forfeiting the ''open-ended'' sense of life''s complexity. In his romantic comedies these conventions are modified to imply that the cosy womb of marriage is not the end of lovers'' lives; in the ''problem'' comedies they are used to challenge the artifice of the comic ending; in some tragedies they are used to provide an ideal of fulfilment which has been destroyed by the tragic events - and in the last plays or ''romances'' they are used to invoke the full sense of life''s continuing comprehensiveness.