Author: Harry Levin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195364309
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 225
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Book Description
Harry Levin--one of America's major literary critics--offers a brilliant and original study of the whole world of comedy, concentrating on playwrights through the centuries, from Aristophanes and Plautus in classical times to Bernard Shaw and Bertolt Brecht and their recent successors. Viewing the comic repertory as a richly varied yet broadly unified whole, Levin provides a synthesis of theories and practice. Isolating two fundamental aspects of comedy--the ludicrous and irreverent "playboy," whom we laugh with, and the ridiculous and forbidding "killjoy," whom we laugh at--he traces the dialectical interplay of these components throughout history and across various cultures and media. While mainly focusing on the plays and the stage, with discussions of such major dramatists as Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Molière, and William Congreve, Levin also includes essays on such related topics as humor, satire, and games.
Author: A. Roy Eckardt
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351293869
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 304
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Book Description
How to Tell God From the Devil is the first book to depict the relationship among comedy, the Devil, and God. Drawing from Jewish and Christian theories, Eckardt describes comedy as a means to distinguish the divine from the diabolic. He presents a thorough critique of efforts throughout history to justify God in the presence of radical evil and suffering. How to Tell God From the Devil is a sequel to Eckardt's fascinating earlier study Sitting in the Earth and Laughing. Eckardt offers a theological vision of the comic, and shows its practical use in differentiating God from the Devil. The viewpoint presupposed is a special application of the incongruity theory of humor, which sees humor as an attempt to deal with inexplicable occurrences. Eckardt shows how humor can make faulty explanations tolerable for examining evil and suffering, particularly the notion that God can somehow be "excused" for the terrible evils extant in the world. Eckardt critiques dualistic views that make the Devil and God independent sovereign beings, and monistic views that try to reduce evil to non-being. Eckardt holds God to be ultimately responsible for evil, in such ways that the only final resolution of evil-if there is such-is a form of divine comedy. Eckardt employs a variety of historical, psychological, sociological, philosophical, and theological sources. He discusses and assesses such diverse figures as Martin Luther, Reinhold Niebuhr, Zen Buddhists, Conrad Hyers, Nancy A. Walker, Jon D. Levenson, and Harvey Cox. How to Tell God From The Devil is an exceptional work, and will be significant and enjoyable for sociologists, theologians, philosophers, and specialists concerned with the study of humor.
Author: Salvatore Attardo
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110219026
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 449
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Book Description
So this English professor comes into class and starts talking about the textual organization of jokes, the taxonomy of puns, the relations between the linguistic form and the content of humorous texts, and other past and current topics in language- based research into humor. At the end he stuffs all the various approaches to verbal humor into linguistic theory as a whole. Nobody gets it, see, so he tells them to buy the book.
Author: Roy Norton
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1855663155
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 414
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Book Description
The first comprehensive study of Calderón in EnglishPedro Calderón de la Barca (1600-1681) is one of the most important dramatists - many would say the single most important dramatist - of the Spanish Golden Age. Spain''s dominant and most prestigious playwright for much of the seventeenth century, his work is still regularly staged and translated, influential in more recent times on writers as diverse as Schiller, Shelley and Lorca. The author of around 120 plays (not counting his numerous Corpus Christi autos) in a variety of styles, Calderón is most famous for his stirring dramas, characterized by rhetorically powerful poetry, dramatic structures carefully calibrated to produce poignant echoes, and the fizzing intellectual energy they apply to the age''s ontological, eschatological and political preoccupations. His plays succeed in combining these perennial concerns with compelling plots subtle enough to defy definitive interpretation. As this volume seeks to show, however, Calderón''s comedies deserve equal recognition. Too long stereotyped as a dour, cerebral conservative, this playwright''s comic works are as amusing as they are clever. This Companion is the first comprehensive study of Calderón in English. It provides a rigorous but readable introduction to the man, his work and its legacy. Its chapters - written by leading international comedia specialists - provide an overview of his life, explain his intellectual, social, moral, and literary contexts, and examine his stagecraft, his corpus, and his reception both within and without the Hispanic world up to the twenty-first century. Specific chapters are devoted to La vida es sueño, his most famous work, which appears on many a university syllabus, and to his infamous wife-murder plays.ual recognition. Too long stereotyped as a dour, cerebral conservative, this playwright''s comic works are as amusing as they are clever. This Companion is the first comprehensive study of Calderón in English. It provides a rigorous but readable introduction to the man, his work and its legacy. Its chapters - written by leading international comedia specialists - provide an overview of his life, explain his intellectual, social, moral, and literary contexts, and examine his stagecraft, his corpus, and his reception both within and without the Hispanic world up to the twenty-first century. Specific chapters are devoted to La vida es sueño, his most famous work, which appears on many a university syllabus, and to his infamous wife-murder plays.ual recognition. Too long stereotyped as a dour, cerebral conservative, this playwright''s comic works are as amusing as they are clever. This Companion is the first comprehensive study of Calderón in English. It provides a rigorous but readable introduction to the man, his work and its legacy. Its chapters - written by leading international comedia specialists - provide an overview of his life, explain his intellectual, social, moral, and literary contexts, and examine his stagecraft, his corpus, and his reception both within and without the Hispanic world up to the twenty-first century. Specific chapters are devoted to La vida es sueño, his most famous work, which appears on many a university syllabus, and to his infamous wife-murder plays.ual recognition. Too long stereotyped as a dour, cerebral conservative, this playwright''s comic works are as amusing as they are clever. This Companion is the first comprehensive study of Calderón in English. It provides a rigorous but readable introduction to the man, his work and its legacy. Its chapters - written by leading international comedia specialists - provide an overview of his life, explain his intellectual, social, moral, and literary contexts, and examine his stagecraft, his corpus, and his reception both within and without the Hispanic world up to the twenty-first century. Specific chapters are devoted to La vida es sueño, his most famous work, which appears on many a university syllabus, and to his infamous wife-murder plays.an, his work and its legacy. Its chapters - written by leading international comedia specialists - provide an overview of his life, explain his intellectual, social, moral, and literary contexts, and examine his stagecraft, his corpus, and his reception both within and without the Hispanic world up to the twenty-first century. Specific chapters are devoted to La vida es sueño, his most famous work, which appears on many a university syllabus, and to his infamous wife-murder plays.
Author: S. Henstra
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230297358
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 192
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Book Description
A wide-ranging study that examines the tendency in 20th-century English fiction to treat grief as an occasion for social critique, unconventional readings of works by Ford, Lessing, and Winterson demonstrate how narrative experimentation in this period responds to socio-historic conditions like post-imperial melancholy, nuclear fear and homophobia.
Author: Andrew Stott
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134424108
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 176
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Book Description
Rather than attempting to produce a totalising definition of 'the comic', this volume focuses on the significance of comic 'events' through study of various theoretical methodologies, including deconstruction, psychoanalysis and gender theory.
Author: Jonathan Locke Hart
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9780815323556
Category : European literature
Languages : en
Pages : 304
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Book Description
First Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Author: Margaret R. Higonnet
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501723030
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 517
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Book Description
The first book to assess the impact of feminist criticism on comparative literature, Borderwork recharts the intellectual and institutional boundaries on that discipline. The seventeen essays collected here, most published for the first time, together call for the contextualization of the study of comparative literature within the areas of discourse, culture, ideology, race, and gender. Contributors: Bella Brodzki, VèVè A. Clark, Chris Cullens, Greta Gaard, Sabine Gölz, Sarah Webster Goodwin, Margaret R. Higonnet, Marianne Hirsch, Susan Sniader Lanser, Françoise Lionnet, Fedwa Malti-Douglas, Lore Metzger, Nancy K. Miller, Obioma Nnaemakea, Rajeswari Sunder Rajan, Anca Vlasopolos.
Author: Murray Roston
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1441109900
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 288
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Book Description
From Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales to Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary, this is a comprehensive guide to comedy in the English literary canon. Beginning with a critical exploration of historical and philosophical theories of humour, the book then supplies close-readings of a wide range of major texts, authors and genres from the Medieval period to the present. The Comic Mode in English Literature examines such texts as: "Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream" Pope's The Rape of the Lock Austen's Emma "Dickens" The Pickwick Papers Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest Amis's Lucky Jim Covering poetry, prose and drama, this comprehensive guide will be essential reading for students of comic writing, literary history and genre.
Author: Arthur Asa Berger
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351305700
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 84
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Book Description
Just as a distinctive literary voice or style is marked by the ease with which it can be parodied, so too can specific aspects of humor be unique. Playwrights, television writers, novelists, cartoonists, and film scriptwriters use many special technical devices to create humor. Just as dramatic writers and novelists use specific devices to craft their work, creators of humorous materials?from the ancient Greeks to today's stand-up comics?have continued to use certain techniques in order to generate humor. In The Art of Comedy Writing, Arthur Asa Berger argues that there are a relatively limited number of techniques?forty-five in all?that humorists employ. Elaborating upon his prior, in-depth study of humor, An Anatomy of Humor, in which Berger provides a content analysis of humor in all forms?joke books, plays, comic books, novels, short stories, comic verse, and essays?The Art of Comedy Writing goes further. Berger groups each technique into four basic categories: humor involving identity such as burlesque, caricature, mimicry, and stereotype; humor involving logic such as analogy, comparison, and reversal; humor involving language such as puns, wordplay, sarcasm, and satire; and finally, chase, slapstick, and speed, or humor involving action. Berger claims that if you want to know how writers or comedians create humor study and analysis of their humorous works can be immensely insightful. This book is a unique analytical offering for those interested in humor. It provides writers and critics with a sizable repertoire of techniques for use in their own future comic creations. As such, this book will be of interest to people inspired by humor and the creative process?professionals in the comedy field and students of creative writing, comedy, literary humor, communications, broadcast/media, and the humanities.
