Ending and Wondering

Abstract

Chapter 6 on endings discusses harmony and dissonance, and explores relevant Italian Renaissance comic practice and theories of comedy. The chapter leads into three final sections, the first (“Exclusion”) taking up the problem of how the “other” (here Shylock), seemingly excluded from the “harmonious” ending, can retain a ghostly presence; the second (“Delusion”) addressing the question of what protagonists and authority figures (and audiences) are left not knowing by the end, as seen in Much Ado About Nothing; and the third (“Forgiveness”) focusing on the special way that the comedies employ wonder to make forgiveness possible (as with Proteus, Claudio, Angelo, and Bertram), a process different from that of the late romances, where forgiveness precedes wonder. Here the problem of human and communal forgiveness moves beyond church strictures and takes illumination from present-day philosophical thinking.