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Subject Area: Humor
DuBruck, Edelgard E.1993 0-7734-9328-X 186 pages
This study examines two fields of research: German society of the fifteenth century, and its carnival comedies. This is a detailed treatment of the four classes (peasants, urban middle class, clergy, and nobility), including such aspects as health, the self and its historicity, and general rules of conduct. The German carnival plays are valuable literary texts allowing insight into fifteenth-century life. This book examines most of the 127 comedies in the Keller collection, listed in one of the indices, and provides translations of all quotations into modern English. It also contains a synoptic tabulation of the Nürnberg plays, valuable to both drama specialists and medievalists.
Kort, Eva
2015 1-4955-0287-2 116 pages
This book opens a new dialogue for philosophical treatments of humor and comedy. It traces their history from the Dionysian Performance Tradition and brings a fresh perspective to the issue as it recasts standard interpretations of the Aristotelian theory in broader terms that offer new grounds for distinguishing ‘humor’, ‘comedy’ and ‘mirth’.
Knittel, Frank
1995 0-7734-8994-0 136 pages
This edition marks the first time that Mankind has been deemed worthy of a full critical examination. It lays to rest the contention that the play is obscene and crude. The evidence presented in the critical introduction, the body of the play itself, and the opinions of current scholars demonstrate that Mankind, more than any other medieval drama, is a link to the Renaissance drama immediately following. With its intricate, well-developed metrical scheme and moral and philosophical themes, it represents an artistic achievement beyond that found in the typical drama of the Middle Ages. Its occasional humor as well as its high seriousness provide a happy combination of both wit and morality.
MacPherson, Jennifer B.
1996 0-7734-2669-8
A poetic account of the author's seven-month sojourn through the Personal Ads scene.
Davis, Maria
2012 0-7734-3063-6 468 pages
While writers such as Cervantes or Moliere could have written their works with humorous intentions, critics have a tendency to offer complex interpretations of their work that negate some of the fun they have. Nevertheless, there has been a trend in the last few years that authors previously considered pessimistic and tragic have been reimagined as comic writers. Márquez falls into this category, which depicts a difficult Latin American reality with humor and irony. He does this because he cannot fathom the continents actual historical events being portrayed using a realistic approach. As they say, fiction is far more interesting than reality. Because of this he employs hyperbole, employed through his famous technique of “magical realism”, which uses humor to create a release, or catharsis in the readers.
Seaver, Paul W. Jr.
1992 0-7734-9886-9 248 pages
This is a study of the humorous techniques employed by Jardiel in the novels and plays that comprise his first humorous phase. This first period constitutes a time of experimentation with audacity and inventive verve of new humorous themes and techniques, his establishment on the Madrid stage as viable theatrical author, and the development of his characteristic style. Based on his new esthetic precepts of renovation of the comic form, he developed a personal style of writing called "jardielism," characterized by hyperbole, the wildly ridiculous and the highly implausible. Further, as a result of his exposure to Hollywood in the 1930s, his works evidence a strong cinematic quality. The four novels studied are: Amor se escribe sin hache; ¡Espérame en Siberia, vida mía!; Pero... ¿hubo alguna vez once mil vírgenes?; and La `tournée' de Dios. Also examines the humorous structures in eight plays. In Spanish throughout.
Seaver, Paul W. Jr.
2004 0-7734-6322-4 125 pages
Parkin, John
1997 0-7734-8459-0 324 pages
This volume examines six theorists of humour who have emerged as particularly influential in the 20th century: Henri Bergson, Sigmund Freud, Mikhail Bakhtin, Arthur Koestler, Northrop Frye, and Helene Cixous. Their major theories are reviewed and tested, and major principles of the theories are set in context with one another, while also being inserted into an over-view which borrows from all of them but is determined by none.
Risden, Edward L.
2013 0-7734-4300-2 156 pages
“This eloquent, richly detailed book…makes important contributions to the theory of humor and to our understanding of Old English literature by striking a subtle balance between hostile and social functions of humor. This is a book teachers and scholars will cherish for years to come.” -Dr. Nickolas Haydock, University of Puerto Rico