PROSPECTUS

Humour, in its harder or softer forms, will be seen to play a significant role in relation to all of the kinds of tolerance in Shakespeare which the present study will consider. This is for reasons going beyond the self-evident fact that manifestations of tolerance in Shakespeare's plays are more likely to arise in genial comedy-like settings than in tragedy-like ones.

In fact harder or harsher rather than more genial forms of humour often accompany Shakespearian treatments of tolerance in both comedy and tragedy. Although festive and socially inclusive moods are often said to distinguish Shakespearian from classical or Jonsonian satiric comedy, some Shakespeare comedies contain judgmental types of humour situated far from the genial. In Chapter 4 on religion, for instance, we will meet in All's Well that Ends Well a long and complex series of linked jokes satirising issues arising in bitter and dangerous contemporary sectarian dissensions.

On the other hand, as we shall see in Chapter 5, a genial quip made by the Duke in Othello illustrates how Shakespeare gives space within a tragedy to tolerance-promoting jesting (a space, it will be argued, that is established only to be tragically stifled in that play). The Duke's attempt at a conciliatory gesture using humour is mirrored in a number of Shakespearian and contemporary contexts that will be considered in Chapters 3 and 4; in these discord threatens to disrupt encounters between persons of diverse outlook or culture, and jokes are used to help rescue dialogue.