
To consider comedy in its many incarnations is to raise diverse but related questions what for instance is humour & how may it be used (or abused)? When do we laugh & why? What is it that writers & speakers enjoy
- & risk
- when they tell a joke indulge in bathos talk nonsense or encourage irony? This Very Short Introduction explores comedy both as a literary genre & as a range of non-literary phenomena experiences & events Matthew Bevis studies the classics of comic drama prose fiction & poetry alongside forms of pantomime comic opera silent cinema popular music Broadway shows music-hall st&-up & circus acts rom-coms sketch shows sit-coms caricatures & cartoons Taking in scenes from Aristophanes to The Office from the Roman Saturnalia to Groundhog Day Bevis also considers comic theory from Aristotle to Freud & beyond tracing how comic achievements have resisted as well as confirmed theory across the ages This book takes comedy seriously without taking it solemnly & offers an engaging study of the comic spirit which lies at the heart of our shared social & cultural life ABOUT THE SERIES The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly Our expert authors combine facts analysis perspective new ideas & enthusiasm to make interesting & challenging topics highly readable