The Places of Wit in Early Modern English Comedy

The Places of Wit in Early Modern English Comedy PDF Author: Adam Zucker
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107003083
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
An exploration of wit, witlessness and social and comic conventions in the plays of Shakespeare, Jonson and their contemporaries.

The Places of Wit in Early Modern English Comedy

The Places of Wit in Early Modern English Comedy PDF Author: Adam Zucker
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107003083
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
An exploration of wit, witlessness and social and comic conventions in the plays of Shakespeare, Jonson and their contemporaries.

Wit

Wit PDF Author: Margaret Edson
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1466871830
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 99

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Book Description
Winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Lucille Lortel Award, and the Oppenheimer Award. Adapted to an Emmy Award-winning television movie, directed by Mike Nichols, starring Emma Thompson. Margaret Edson's powerfully imagined Pulitzer Prize–winning play examines what makes life worth living through her exploration of one of existence's unifying experiences—mortality—while she also probes the vital importance of human relationships. What we as her audience take away from this remarkable drama is a keener sense that, while death is real and unavoidable, our lives are ours to cherish or throw away—a lesson that can be both uplifting and redemptive. As the playwright herself puts it, "The play is not about doctors or even about cancer. It's about kindness, but it shows arrogance. It's about compassion, but it shows insensitivity." In Wit, Edson delves into timeless questions with no final answers: How should we live our lives knowing that we will die? Is the way we live our lives and interact with others more important than what we achieve materially, professionally, or intellectually? How does language figure into our lives? Can science and art help us conquer death, or our fear of it? What will seem most important to each of us about life as that life comes to an end? The immediacy of the presentation, and the clarity and elegance of Edson's writing, make this sophisticated, multilayered play accessible to almost any interested reader. As the play begins, Vivian Bearing, a renowned professor of English who has spent years studying and teaching the intricate, difficult Holy Sonnets of the seventeenth-century poet John Donne, is diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer. Confident of her ability to stay in control of events, she brings to her illness the same intensely rational and painstakingly methodical approach that has guided her stellar academic career. But as her disease and its excruciatingly painful treatment inexorably progress, she begins to question the single-minded values and standards that have always directed her, finally coming to understand the aspects of life that make it truly worth living.

The English Wits

The English Wits PDF Author: Michelle O'Callaghan
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139462563
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 15

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Book Description
In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries the Inns of Court and fashionable London taverns developed a culture of clubbing, urban sociability and wit. The convivial societies that emerged created rituals to define social identities and to engage in literary play and political discussion. Michelle O'Callaghan argues that the lawyer-wits, including John Hoskyns, in company with authors such as John Donne, Ben Jonson and Thomas Coryate, consciously reinvigorated humanist traditions of learned play. Their experiments with burlesque, banquet literature, parody and satire resulted in a volatile yet creative dialogue between civility and licence, and between pleasure and the violence of scurrilous words. The wits inaugurated a mode of literary fellowship that shaped the history and literature of sociability in the seventeenth century. This study will provide many insights for historians and literary scholars of the period.

The Devil’s Dictionary

The Devil’s Dictionary PDF Author: Ambrose Bierce
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 341

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Book Description
“Dictionary, n: A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work.” Bierce’s groundbreaking Devil’s Dictionary had a complex publication history. Started in the mid-1800s as an irregular column in Californian newspapers under various titles, he gradually refined the new-at-the-time idea of an irreverent set of glossary-like definitions. The final name, as we see it titled in this work, did not appear until an 1881 column published in the periodical The San Francisco Illustrated Wasp. There were no publications of the complete glossary in the 1800s. Not until 1906 did a portion of Bierce’s collection get published by Doubleday, under the name The Cynic’s Word Book—the publisher not wanting to use the word “Devil” in the title, to the great disappointment of the author. The 1906 word book only went from A to L, however, and the remainder was never released under the compromised title. In 1911 the Devil’s Dictionary as we know it was published in complete form as part of Bierce’s collected works (volume 7 of 12), including the remainder of the definitions from M to Z. It has been republished a number of times, including more recent efforts where older definitions from his columns that never made it into the original book were included. Due to the complex nature of copyright, some of those found definitions have unclear public domain status and were not included. This edition of the book includes, however, a set of definitions attributed to his one-and-only “Demon’s Dictionary” column, including Bierce’s classic definition of A: “the first letter in every properly constructed alphabet.” Bierce enjoyed “quoting” his pseudonyms in his work. Most of the poetry, dramatic scenes and stories in this book attributed to others were self-authored and do not exist outside of this work. This includes the prolific Father Gassalasca Jape, whom he thanks in the preface—“jape” of course having the definition: “a practical joke.” This book is a product of its time and must be approached as such. Many of the definitions hold up well today, but some might be considered less palatable by modern readers. Regardless, the book’s humorous style is a valuable snapshot of American culture from past centuries. This book is part of the Standard Ebooks project, which produces free public domain ebooks.

From Rhetoric to Aesthetics: Wit and Esprit in the English and French Theoretical Writings of the Late Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries

From Rhetoric to Aesthetics: Wit and Esprit in the English and French Theoretical Writings of the Late Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries PDF Author: Klára Bicanová
Publisher: Masarykova univerzita
ISBN: 8021082305
Category : Crafts & Hobbies
Languages : en
Pages : 157

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Book Description
Práce se zabývá především anglickým termínem wit v jeho moderním i historickém kontextu. Dále se zabývá literárními a estetickými důsledky pojmů wit a esprit a jejich použitím v teoretických spisech několika kritiků v období raně moderní Anglie a Francie. Práce má dva hlavní cíle. Prvním cílem je přehodnocení anglického pojmu wit, který je dnes považován za poněkud zastaralý výrazový prostředek historických poetických systémů a prezentovat jej jako životaschopnou a užitečnou součást současného uměleckého diskurzu. Druhým cílem této práce je poskytnout srovnávací výklad raně moderních anglických a francouzských teoretických textů zabývající se termíny wit a esprit.

Gore Ot Ouma

Gore Ot Ouma PDF Author: Aleksandr Sergeyevich Griboyedov
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 150

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Book Description


Aphra Behn's English Feminism

Aphra Behn's English Feminism PDF Author: Dolors Altaba-Artal
Publisher: Susquehanna University Press
ISBN: 9781575910291
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Behn's novels, though, discard Zayas's pessimistic views and supernatural accounts; using wit and satire, they completely subvert the original texts."--BOOK JACKET.

Wit in English

Wit in English PDF Author: Paul Joel Freeman
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1469105896
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
There is no available information at this time.

Wit's End: What Wit Is, How It Works, and Why We Need It

Wit's End: What Wit Is, How It Works, and Why We Need It PDF Author: James Geary
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 039325495X
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
Entertaining, illuminating, and entirely unique, Wit’s End “convey[s] the power of wit to refresh the mind” (Henry Hitchings, Wall Street Journal). In “this inventive and playful book” (Tom Beer, Newsday), James Geary explores every facet of wittiness, from its role in innovation to why puns are the highest form of wit. Adopting a different style for each chapter—from dramatic dialogue to sermon, heroic couplets to a barroom monologue—Geary embodies wit in all its forms. Wit’s End agilely balances psychology, folktale, visual art, and literary history with lighthearted humor and acute insight, demonstrating that wit and wisdom are really the same thing.

The Wicked Wit of England

The Wicked Wit of England PDF Author: Geoff Tibballs
Publisher: Michael O'Mara Books
ISBN: 1789290317
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
Nobody does irony or sarcasm like the English. The Wicked Wit of England is celebration of British humour, featuring a collection of stories, anecdotes, quips and quotes that capture the various idiosyncrasies of the English character.