This hallmark work examines comedy and its many forms throughout history.
Comedy is a fundamental part of the human experience. Collecting the work of today's leading scholars, Maurice Charney presents 40 essays on the many forms that comedy has taken throughout history. Ranging from the comic plays of ancient times to Renaissance and Restoration comedies, from Commedia dell'Arte to stand-up performers, from trickster tales to television sitcoms, these surveys trace the evolution of the comic genre. Chapters on geographically based traditions (American regional humor, Irish comedy, Spanish comedy, etc.) contribute a multicultural understanding, while essays on such topics as Irony, Satire, and the Comedy of Philosophy examine the theoretical aspects of comedy. A glossary for important figures and terms will be of added value to readers of this wonderfully eclectic collection.
Comedy is a fundamental part of the human experience. Collecting the work of today's leading scholars, Maurice Charney presents 40 essays on the many forms that comedy has taken throughout history. Ranging from the comic plays of ancient times to Renaissance and Restoration comedies, from Commedia dell'Arte to stand-up performers, from trickster tales to television sitcoms, these surveys trace the evolution of the comic genre. Chapters on geographically based traditions (American regional humor, Irish comedy, Spanish comedy, etc.) contribute a multicultural understanding, while essays on such topics as Irony, Satire, and the Comedy of Philosophy examine the theoretical aspects of comedy. A glossary for important figures and terms adds even more to this wonderfully eclectic collection.
Editor Maurice Charney brings his lifetime of scholarship on comedy and drama to these volumes, which collect new essays from today's leading scholars on the subject of comedy in its many forms.
Introduction
Volume I
Academic Humor by Paul Schlueter
African-American Comedians by Frank J. Miles
African-American Humor by John W. Lowe
African Film Comedy by Carina Yervasi
American Drama Since 1975 by Richard Brucher
American Film by Leo Charney
American Jewish Humor by James D. Bloom
American Literature in the Nineteenth Century by Susan Welsh
American Political Cartoons and Comics by Kalman Goldstein
Animation by Kirsten Thompson
Arthurian Romance by Andrew Welsh
Black Comedy by Benjamin Nathan Schachtman
British Contemporary Comedy by David Hawkes
Canadian Comedy by Gerald Lynch
Children's Humor by Kathryn Douglas
Commedia dell' Arte by Frances K. Barasch
English Comedy, Elizabethan and Jacobean, Naomi Conn Liebler
English Comedy, Restoration and Augustan, John Richetti
English Comedy, Victorian, by Heather L. Braun
Volume II
Farce by Norman R. Shapiro
French Contemporary Comedy by Alyson Waters
French Drama in the 17th Century by Philip Koch
German Comedy by Bettina Brandt
Greek Comedy by Mary C. English
Irish Comedy by James M. Cahalan
Irony by Don L. F. Nilsen and Alleen Pace Nilsen
Italian Comedy by Nina da Vinci Nichols
Middle English Comedy by Andrew Welsh
Native American Trickster Tales by Arnold Krupat
The Philosophy of Humor by Adrian Bardon
Queer Comedy by Ken Feil
Roman Comedy by Maurice Charney
The Romantic Period by William Galperin
Satire by Harry Keyishian
Shakespeare's Comedies and Romances by Margaret Mikesell
Spanish Comedy by Nina Gerassi-Navarro and Raquel Medina-Banon
Stand Up Comedy by Lawrence E. Mintz
Television Sitcoms by Leo Charney
Glossary
About the Editor and Authors
Index
Reviews
[S]tudents ... will find this book a useful resource... I do not know of any book which covers the literary criticism of comedy in such exhaustive detail as this... University libraries ... catering for courses in English literature, media studies, etc. will find eager readers for it. [S]tudents of the comic tradition in Western culture will find the information they need neatly laid out for them in a clear and accessible fashion.—Reference Reviews
This two-volume collection of essays by scholars who are experts on a variety of comedic topics shows that comedy has a long history and a broad geography. The contributors' fascinating accounts range over a variety of divergent eras and areas....[t]he set offers much to admire....[e]arns a place in the general literature on comedy--particularly for its essays on such contemporary comedic forms as stand-up comedy television sitcoms. On the whole, it demonstrates that comedy is far from dead. Recommended. All collections.—Choice
