R.S. White 
Let Wonder Seem Familiar [PDF ebook] 
Shakespeare and the Romance Ending

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.