Velma Bourgeois Richmond is a past Fulbright Scholar and recipient of an American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship. She is Emeritus Professor of English at the Holy Names College, Oakland, California and is the author of studies of Muriel Spark and Geoffrey Chaucer, Laments for the Dead in Medieval Narrative, The Popularity of Middle English Romance, and The Legend of Guy of Warwick.

Select Guide Rating

• IllustrationsPrefaceIntroductionPart I The Christian Vision and Living in Shakespeare’s World1 Medieval ChristendomSeven SacramentsThe Romance Tradition2 Reformation Changes and Lingering ImagesRestoration and Reform under Queen Mary TudorElizabeth and Enforced ProtestantismPuritans Mysteries’ EndThe Romance Tradition3 The Shakespeares of StratfordPart 2 The Tradition of Romance4 The Romance Mode: Medieval Origins and Some ReworkingsThe Comedy of Errors (c. 1589-94)Two Gentlemen in Verona (c. 1590-94)A Midsummer Night’s Dream (c. 1595)The Merchant of Venice (c. 1596-97)5 Understanding the Romance ModeAs You Like It (1598-1600)Twelfth Night (1600-1602)Anti-Romance: Chaucer Revisited6 Lost Men and Women: Suffering and TranscendenceAll’s Well that Ends Well (c. 1601-5)Pericles (1606-8)Cymbeline (c. 1608-10)The Tempest (c. 1611)7 The Romance Mode Attained: Accused Wives and QueensHero in Much Ado About Nothing (c. 1598-99)Desdemona in Othello (1604-5)Hermione in The Winter’s Tale (c. 1609-11)Katherine in Henry VIII (1613)ConclusionNotesA Bibliographical NoteIndex