Reader in Comedy

Magda Romanska and Alan Ackermans Reader in Comedy is a well-thought-out anthology that embarks on a challenging enterprise: to provide an overview of theories related to comedy To help the reader navigate the wide range of texts compiled in this volume, the editors preface each section with generous introductions that provide an overview of the distinguishing characteristics of each period, make perceptive generic comparisons, and point to continuities and discontinuities over time These introductory pieces help readers identify common trends in the texts collected under each section and explain historically-contingent changes in comic structures. The general introduction, in turn, offers a valuable outline of the book: it explains the provenance of key terms, outlines debates on the role of comedy in particular periods, discusses typical comic plots and character-types, and ends with a brief synopsis of relevant theories of humor and laughter. Combined with the useful bibliographies following each of these prefatory studies, the Reader is an invaluable tool for teachers and students alike. * SHARP News * [The editors] model a clear acceptance of historical shifts in ideas on the function of comedy, providing rigorous contextualization that locates each idea in its moment in time, and makes this a robust and useful primer for Western comedy theory through the ages A strong collection of foundational texts for those looking to ground themselves in Western scholarship of the comic over time. * Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism * Editors Magda Romanska and Alan Ackerman open their book by admitting the difficulty of their tasks: to historicize a genre so diverse in form and style and to define a genre (and its many subgenres) that itself resists definition. Rising to the challenge, the editors of Reader in Comedy: An Anthology of Theory and Criticism have created a temporally expansive analysis of western comic theory. Romanska and Ackermans collection of theoretical texts tells a story of how comedy and comic theory reflect and influence theatrical and performance conventions, social structures, technology, philosophy, and civic life. It is a substantial anthology that interweaves performance studies, drama, literature, and critical theory. Romanska and Ackerman have curated a collection that charts continuity in comic theory without diluting historical specificities. Each introduction to the chapters succinctly contextualizes the comic theory of its time and also links the annotated texts to previous chapters. Consequently, I would recommend this text for a survey course on comedy and comic theory in the United States and Europe, or to any scholar seeking a broad overview of writings on comedy. * Modern Drama * Reader in Comedy is a full, rich and highly informative anthology that can be dipped into time and time again ... For the scholar of comic theory and criticism, this is an extremely valuable reference tool. * Comedy Studies * Additional readings from important authors, such as Kenneth Burke, Mikhail Bakhtin, Linda Hutcheson and Simon Critchley, makes it a valuable addition to the bookshelf of any scholar or student of comedy. * Studies in Theatre and Performance * This is an immense resource covering a lot of ground. * South African Theatre Journal * The main benefit of this collection is in presenting these texts together as a starting place for those interested in genre studies ... It would provide a wonderful introduction to those interested in exploring genre across time periods, and for that reason it makes a welcome addition to the Bloomsbury Methuen Drama series. * Forum for Modern Language Studies * A much-needed compendium on comedy tracking the narrative arc of the funny bone from Plato to the present day. * Michael Rodgers, University of Strathclyde, UK * This is a comprehensive and thoughtful selection of texts. All of the key theorists are represented and the books chronological

Magda Romanska is Associate Professor of Theatre Studies and Dramaturgy at Emerson College, USA, and Visiting Associate Professor of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism at Yale School of Drama. Alan Ackerman is Professor of English at the University of Toronto, Canada, where he also holds a joint-appointment in the Centre for Drama, Theatre, and Performance Studies. He is the editor of Arthur Miller's Broken Glass (Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2011) and since 2005 has served as Editor of the journal Modern Drama.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS GENERAL INTRODUCTION CHAPTER 1: ANTIQUITY AND THE MIDDLE AGES INTRODUCTION TEXTS Ancient Views of Comedy 1) Plato, Philebus (The Basis of comedy is malice) 2) Aristotle on the Origins and Function of Comedy a. Poetics b. On the qualities of character that are moderate from Nicomachean Ethics c. Tractatus Coislinianus 3) Horace, Remarks on Comedy from Epistles, Satires 4) Quintilian, Institutio oratoria (A.D. 95) Medieval Views of Comedy 5) Evanthius, On Drama (ca. A.D. 350) 6) Donatus, On Comedy (ca. A.D. 350) 7) Hrotsvita of Gandersheim, Prologue to the comedies (ca. A.D. 935-972) 8) Dante Alighieri, De vulgari eloquentia (On Eloquence in the vernacular) (1302-1305) 9) Definitions of Comedy (John of Garland, Dante, John Lydgate) 10) Attitudes to the Comic Theater (John of Salisbury, Honorius of Autun, Liuprand of Cremona) CHAPTER 2: THE RENAISSANCE INTRODUCTION TEXTS 1) Erasmus, Collected Works of Erasmus (1512) 2) Gian Giorgio Trissino, Division VI: Comedy, Poetica (1529) 3) Sir Thomas Elyot, , XII: The Second and third decay of leaning The Governor The boke named the gouernour / deuised by Thomas Elyot knight(1531) 4) Nicholas Udall, Prologue to Ralph Roster Doister (1538) 5) Thomas Wilson, Of Delighting the Hearers and Stirring Them to Laughter fromThe Arte of Rhetorique (1560) 6) George Gascoigne, Prologue to The Glasse of Governement (1575) 7) Stephen Gosson, The School of Abuse: containing a pleasant invective against poets, pipers, players, jesters, etc (1579) 8) Sir Philip Sidney, Comedy, Tragicomedy, The Nature of Laughter from The Defence of Poesie (1595) 9) Ben Jonson, Every Man Out of his Humour (1599) 10) Battista Guarini, Compendium of Tragicomic Poetry (1601) CHAPTER 3: RESTORATION TO ROMANTICISM INTRODUCTION TEXTS 1) Samuel Butler, Characters and Passages from Notebooks (ca. 1650) 2) Molire, Preface to Tartuffe (1667) 3) William Congreve, Dedication to The Double-Dealer (1693) 4) John Dryden, Of Dramatick Poesie, an Essay(1668) 5) Aphra Behn Epistle to the Reader, from The Dutch Lover (1673) 6) John Dryden, A Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire (1693) 7) Jeremy Collier, A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage (1698) 8) Anthony Ashley Cooper, Third Earl of Shaftesbury, The Freedom of Wit and Humour from Sensus communis: An essay on the freedom of wit and humour (1709) 9) Richard Blackmore, Essay upon Wit(1716) 10) Henry Fielding, selections from the Preface to Joseph Andrews (1742) 11) Samuel Johnson, The Difficulty of Defining Comedy, The Rambler (1751) 12) Oliver Goldsmith, A Comparison between Laughing and Sentimental Comedy (1773) 13) Immanuel Kant, Comparison of the Aesthetic Value of the Various Fine Arts from Critique of Judgment, 14) Jean Paul Richter, On the Ridiculous (1804) 15) William Hazlitt, On Wit and Humour (1819) 16) Charles Lamb, On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century (1822) CHAPTER 4: THE INDUSTRIAL AGE INTRODUCTION TEXTS 1) Sren Kierkegaard, The reality of suffering (humor); Humor as an incognito for religiosity; Humor The religiosity of hidden inwardness from Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846) 2) W. M. Thackeray, The English Humourists of the Eighteenth Century (1853) 3) Charles Baudelaire, On the Essence of Laughter (1855) 4) George Meredith, An Essay on Comedy and the Uses of the Comic Spirit (1897) 5) George Bernard Shaw, Meredith on Comedy (1897) 6) Mark Twain, How to Tell a Story (1897) 7) Henri Bergson, Laughter (1901) 8) Sigmund Freud, Wit and