Shakespeare and laughter

Shakespeare and laughter PDF Author: Indira Ghose
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1847797040
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
This book examines laughter in the Shakespearean theatre, in the context of a cultural history of early modern laughter. Aimed at an informed readership as well as graduate students and scholars in the field of Shakespeare studies, it is the first study to focus specifically on laughter, not comedy. It looks at various strands of the early modern discourse on laughter, ranging from medical treatises and courtesy manuals to Puritan tracts and jestbook literature. It argues that few cultural phenomena have undergone as radical a change in meaning as laughter. Laughter became bound up with questions of taste and class identity. At the same time, humanist thinkers revalorised the status of recreation and pleasure. These developments left their trace on the early modern theatre, where laughter was retailed as a commodity in an emerging entertainment industry. Shakespeare ́s plays both reflect and shape these changes, particularly in his adaptation of the Erasmian wise fool as a stage figure, and in the sceptical strain of thought that is encapsulated in the laughter evoked in the plays.

Shakespeare and laughter

Shakespeare and laughter PDF Author: Indira Ghose
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1847797040
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book examines laughter in the Shakespearean theatre, in the context of a cultural history of early modern laughter. Aimed at an informed readership as well as graduate students and scholars in the field of Shakespeare studies, it is the first study to focus specifically on laughter, not comedy. It looks at various strands of the early modern discourse on laughter, ranging from medical treatises and courtesy manuals to Puritan tracts and jestbook literature. It argues that few cultural phenomena have undergone as radical a change in meaning as laughter. Laughter became bound up with questions of taste and class identity. At the same time, humanist thinkers revalorised the status of recreation and pleasure. These developments left their trace on the early modern theatre, where laughter was retailed as a commodity in an emerging entertainment industry. Shakespeare ́s plays both reflect and shape these changes, particularly in his adaptation of the Erasmian wise fool as a stage figure, and in the sceptical strain of thought that is encapsulated in the laughter evoked in the plays.

Staged Transgression in Shakespeare's England

Staged Transgression in Shakespeare's England PDF Author: R. Loughnane
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137349352
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 485

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Book Description
Staged Transgression in Shakespeare's England is a groundbreaking collection of seventeen essays, drawing together leading and emerging scholars to discuss and challenge critical assumptions about the transgressive nature of the early modern English stage. These essays shed new light on issues of gender, race, sexuality, law and politics. Staged Transgression was followed by a companion collection, Staged Normality in Shakespeare's England (2019), also available from Palgrave: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-00892-5

The Cambridge Companion to Shakespearean Comedy

The Cambridge Companion to Shakespearean Comedy PDF Author: Alexander Leggatt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521779425
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
An accessible, wide-ranging and informed introduction to Shakespeare's comedies, dark comedies and romances, first published in 2001.

Shakespeare in Jest

Shakespeare in Jest PDF Author: Indira Ghose
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000432637
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 171

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Book Description
Shakespeare in Jest draws fascinating parallels between Shakespeare's humour and contemporary humour. Indira Ghose argues that while many of Shakespeare's jokes no longer work for us, his humour was crucial in shaping comedy in today's entertainment industry. The book looks at a wide variety of plays and reads them in conjunction with examples from contemporary culture, from stand-up comedy to late night shows. Ghose shows the importance of jokes, the functions of which are remarkably similar in Shakespeare’s time and ours. Shakespeare's wittiest characters are mostly women, who use wit to puncture male pretensions and to acquire cultural capital. Clowns and wise fools use humour to mock their betters, while black humour trains the spotlight on the audience, exposing our collusion in the world it skewers. In a discussion of the ethics of humour, the book uncovers striking affinities between Puritan attacks on the theatre and contemporary attacks on comedy. An enjoyable and accessible read, this lively book will enlighten and entertain students, researchers, and general readers interested in Shakespeare, humour, and popular culture.

Happily Ever Laughter

Happily Ever Laughter PDF Author: Focus on the Family
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
ISBN: 1604829567
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
Happily Ever Laughter captures real-life stories from couples—stories chosen for their humor, variety of settings, and diversity of years married. As readers laugh along with each couple described, they will begin to understand that being able to see the humor in life helps greatly in keeping one’s marriage happy and healthy through the years. Includes stories from Chonda Pierce, Bob Stromberg, Daren Streblow, Kendra Smiley, Jeff Allen, John Branyan, Rhonda Rhea, David Dean, Dave Veerman, and Neil Wilson.

Shakespeare & the Uses of Comedy

Shakespeare & the Uses of Comedy PDF Author: Joseph Allen Bryant
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 9780813130958
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 300

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Book Description
In Shakespeare's hand the comic mode became an instrument for exploring the broad territory of the human situation, including much that had normally been reserved for tragedy. Once the reader recognizes that justification for such an assumption is presented repeatedly in the earlier comedies -- from The Comedy of Errors to Twelfth Night -- he has less difficulty in dispensing with the currently fashionable classifications of the later comedies as problem plays and romances or tragicomedies and thus in seeing them all as manifestations of a single impulse. Bryant shows how Shakespeare, early a.

Laughing and Weeping in Early Modern Theatres

Laughing and Weeping in Early Modern Theatres PDF Author: Matthew Steggle
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351922998
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
Did Shakespeare's original audiences weep? Equally, while it seems obvious that they must have laughed at plays performed in early modern theatres, can we say anything about what their laughter sounded like, about when it occurred, and about how, culturally, it was interpreted? Related to both of these problems of audience behaviour is that of the stage representation of laughing, and weeping, both actions performed with astonishing frequency in early modern drama. Each action is associated with a complex set of non-verbal noises, gestures, and cultural overtones, and each is linked to audience behaviour through one of the axioms of Renaissance dramatic theory: that weeping and laughter on stage cause, respectively, weeping and laughter in the audience. This book is a study of laughter and weeping in English theatres, broadly defined, from around 1550 until their closure in 1642. It is concerned both with the representation of these actions on the stage, and with what can be reconstructed about the laughter and weeping of theatrical audiences themselves, arguing that both actions have a peculiar importance in defining the early modern theatrical experience.

Laughter, Pain, and Wonder

Laughter, Pain, and Wonder PDF Author: David Richman
Publisher: University of Delaware Press
ISBN: 9780874133882
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
This work's chief aim is to restore to readers, performers, and audiences the richness and vitality of Shakespeare's comedies. Richman explores the way in which a reader's relations to Shakespeare's literary texts differ from those of the relations between performers of Shakespeare's works and their audiences. Richman also examines the forms of humor and empathy that Shakespeare's comedies elicit.

Rumi's Little Book of Love and Laughter

Rumi's Little Book of Love and Laughter PDF Author: Coleman Barks
Publisher: Hampton Roads Publishing
ISBN: 161283373X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Rowdy, ecstatic, and sometimes stern, these teaching stories and fables reveal new and very human properties in Rumi's vision. Included here are the notorious "Latin parts" that Reynold Nicholson felt were too unseemly to appear in English in his 1920s translation. For Rumi, anything that human beings do--however compulsive--affords a glimpse into the inner life. Here are more than 40 fables or teaching stories that deal with love, laughter, death, betrayal, and the soul. The stories are exuberant, earthy, and bursting with vitality--much like a painting by Hieronymus Bosch or Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The characters are guilty, lecherous, tricky, ribald, and finally possessors of opened souls. Barks writes: "These teaching stories are a kind of scrimshaw--intricately carved, busy figures, confused and threatening, and weirdly funny. This is an entertaining collection from one of the greatest spiritual poets of all time, rendered by his most popular translator. "The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along."--Rumi

On the Comic and Laughter

On the Comic and Laughter PDF Author: Vladimir Propp
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1442697202
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
An extensive investigation of the forms and functions of the comic, this lively and engaging English critical edition will be welcomed by those interested in laughter, comedy, folklore, Russian literature, and specific authors such as Gogol, Pushkin, Chekhov, Rabelais, Molière, and Shakespeare. The direct, humorous, and provocative style of this work, which tackles the subject of humour with a vast array of vivid examples encountered on every page, will certainly appeal to the contemporary reader. Vladimir Propp takes various forms of laughter in literature and real life and addresses questions such as the comic of similarity, the comic of difference, parody, duping, incongruity, lying, ritual laughter, and carnival laughter. The author of the widely acclaimed Morphology of the Folktale has written an original, comprehensive, and exciting study on how humour works, and on everything you wanted to know about the genre, in a clear, approachable, and insightful manner.