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Humour in Anglo-Saxon Literatureby Jonathan Wilcox
Boydell & Brewer 2000; US$ 52.50Although the question of humour in the surviving corpus of Old English literature has rarely been discussed, the potential for analyzing this literature in terms of its humor is in fact considerable. In the essays especially commissioned for this volume, the first book-length treatment of Anglo-Saxon humor, eight of the foremost scholars in the field use different approaches to explore humor in the surviving literature of Anglo-Saxon England, in such works as Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon, the riddles of the Exeter book, and Old English saints' lives. more...
The Pocket Essential Robert Crumbby D.K. Holm
Pocket Essentials 2006; US$ 7.99But Crumb isn't just a great cartoonist. He is a great writer as well. His sardonic view of the world is literary and sophisticated, and in his introductions to books and anthologies, as well as in his letters and other writings, Crumb is revealed as a writer with a style as distinctive as his cartoons and with a comic timing just as finely honed. To answer the question, the people who read Crumb include anyone who values biting satire, good writing, and great art. more...
American Humoristsby Willard Thorp
University of Minnesota Press 1964; US$ 36.00AMERICANS, in the early days, imported much of their humor and made it over. Addison and Steele were influential; Dickens had his American imitators. Baron Munchausen's adventures were particularly popular in this country. Many of his tales disappeared into American folklore and rose again as transformed American tall tales. more...
Very Serious Thingby Nancy A. Walker
University of Minnesota Press 1988; US$ 54.00Defines why women have been blocked from participating in the mainstream of American comedy yet have overcome hurdles to produce a humor that is sustaining and spells survival for women in society. more...
Laughing Fit to Killby Glenda Carpio; Albert J. Grudzinskas; John M. Bradford; Daniel J. Brodsky; Paul Appelbaum
Oxford University Press, USA 2008; US$ 19.95Introduction. 1. "Laffin fit ter kill:" Black Humor in the Fiction of William Wells Brown and Charles W. Chesnutt. 2. The Conjurer Recoils: Slavery in Richard Pryor and Chappelle's Show. 3. Conjuring the Mysteries of Slavery: Voodoo, Fetishism, and Stereotype in Ishmael Reed's Flight to Canada. 4. "A Comedy of the Grotesque": Robert Colescott, Kara Walker and the Iconography of Slavery. 5. The Tragicomedy of Slavery in Suzan-Lori Parks' Early Plays. Notes. Bibliography. Index more...
Machine-Age Comedyby Michael North
Oxford University Press, USA 2008; US$ 27.95Series Editors' Foreword. Preface. Introduction. Part I. 1. Camera Men. 2. Mickey's Mechanical Man. 3. Goldberg Variations. Part II. 4. Wyndham Lewis, Soldier of Humor. 5. Beckett's Machinations. 6. A More than Infinite Jest. Conclusion more...
Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don't Floatby Sarah Schmelling
Penguin Group Inc. 2009; US$ 12.99In the bestselling tradition of Stuff White People Like and I Can Has Cheezburger? , the next online humor sensation makes the leap to book form When humorist Sarah Schmelling transformed Hamlet into a Facebook news feed, it launched the next big humor trend-Facebook lit. This hilarious book is the first to bring more than fifty authors and stories from classic literature back to life and online. Schmelling uses the conventions of social networking- profile pages, status updates, news feeds, and applications-to retell everything from The Odyssey to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to Lolita . At last, your favorite characters and authors from classic literature have caved to the pressure and joined a social network. William... more...
Comic Reliefby John Morreall
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 2009; US$ 43.95Comic Relief: A Comprehensive Philosophy of Humor develops an inclusive theory that integrates psychological, aesthetic, and ethical issues relating to humor Offers an enlightening and accessible foray into the serious business of humor Reveals how standard theories of humor fail to explain its true nature and actually support traditional prejudices against humor as being antisocial, irrational, and foolish Argues that humor’s benefits overlap significantly with those of philosophy Includes a foreword by Robert Mankoff, Cartoon Editor of The New Yorker more...
Calvinist Humor in American Literatureby Michael Dunne
LSU Press 2007; US$ 37.50Though the phrase "Calvinist humor" may seem to be an oxymoron, Michael Dunne, in highly original and unfailingly interesting readings of major American fiction writers, uncovers and traces two recurrent strands of Calvinist humor descending from Puritan times far into the twentieth century. Calvinist doctrine views mankind as fallen, apt to engage in any number of imperfect behaviors. Calvinist humor, Dunne explains, consists in the perception of this imperfection. When we perceive that only others are imperfect, we participate in the form of Calvinist humor preferred by William Bradford and Nathanael West. When we perceive that others are imperfect, as we all are, we participate in the form preferred by Mark Twain and William Faulkner,... more...
Cheeky Fictionsby Susanne Reichl; Mark Stein
Editions Rodopi 2005; US$ 91.00Humour is a key feature, laughter a central element, disrespect a vital textual strategy of postcolonial transcultural practice. Devices such as irony, parody, and subversion, can be subsumed under an interventionist stance and have accordingly received some critical attention. But literary and cultural postcolonial criticism has been marked by a restraint verging on the pious towards the wider significance and functions of laughter. This collection transcends such orthodoxies: laughter can constitute an intervention but it can also function otherwise. The essays collected here take an interest in the strategic use of what can loosely be termed laughter in all its manifestations. Examining postcolonial transcultural practice from... more...