This book examines dramatic dialogue in English-language theatre, tracing verbal invention across four centuries from Shakespeare and Restoration comedy right up to contemporary English and American theatre. Published posthumously, this renowned theatre scholar's book considers English dramatic dialogue as exemplified in the verbal invention of particular plays. That invention is traced through puns, repetitions, adroit clichés, occasional neologisms, malapropisms, sound play and more or less recondite allusions. In eight chapters, Cohn offers close readings of monologue and dialogue in plays by William Shakespeare, William Wycherley, George Etherege, William Congreve, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, Edward Albee, Harold Pinter, David Mamet, Tom Stoppard, Sarah Kane, Mark Ravenhill, Caryl Churchill, Sam Shepard, Adrienne Kennedy and Suzan-Lori Parks. It’s a fascinating text, written with Cohn’s characteristic wit, warmth and lucidity, and offers both an authoritative introduction to theatre dialogue and a remarkable final addition to Cohn’s scholarly legacy.
