Eric Weitz - Böcker

'Laughter', says Eric Weitz, 'may be considered one of the most extravagant physical effects one person can have on another without touching them'. But how do we identify something which is meant to be comic, what defines something as 'comedy', and what does this mean for the way we enter the world of a comic text? Addressing these issues, and many more, this is a 'how to' guide to reading comedy from the pages of a dramatic text, with relevance to anything from novels and newspaper columns to billboards and emails. The book enables you to enhance your grasp of the comic through familiarity with characteristic structures and patterns, referring to comedy in literature, film and television throughout. Perfect for drama and literature students, this Introduction explores a genre which affects the everyday lives of us all, and will therefore also capture the interest of anyone who loves to laugh.

This stimulating introduction to laughter in theatre and performance examines laughter among actors, among audience, and the interaction between the two. Exploring the many uses and effects of laughter in theatre, Eric Weitz considers laughter as a tool of political resonance, as social commentary, and as one of the oldest rhetorical devices.

This Handbook offers a multiform sweep of theoretical, historical, practical and personal glimpses into a landscape roughly characterised as contemporary Irish theatre and performance.

How has our expression, use and reception of comedy developed from antiquity to the present day? What role has it occupied in Western culture, and what can it tell us about how society has changed?In a work that spans 2,500 years, these ambitious questions are addressed by 55 experts, each contributing their overview of a theme applied to a period in history. The volumes describe various manifestations of comedy, its use in religion, theatre and literature, and its historical and philosophical significance.Individual volume editors ensure the cohesion of the whole, and to make it as easy as possible to use, chapter titles are identical across each of the volumes. This gives the choice of reading about a specific period in one of the volumes, or following a theme across history by reading the relevant chapter in each of the six.The six volumes cover: 1. – Antiquity (500 BCE - 1000 AD); 2. – Middle Ages (1000 - 1400); 3. – Early Modern Age (1400 - 1650) ; 4. – Age of Enlightenment (1650 - 1800); 5. – Age of Empire (1800 - 1920); 6. – Modern Age (1920 – present).Themes (and chapter titles) are: Form; Theory; Praxis; Identities; The Body; Politics and Power; Laughter; and Ethics.The page extent is approximately 1,824pp with c. 191 illustrations. Each volume opens with Notes on Contributors, a series preface and an introduction, and concludes with Notes, Bibliography and an Index.The Cultural Histories SeriesA Cultural History of Comedy is part of The Cultural Histories Series. Titles are available both as printed hardcover sets for libraries needing just one subject or preferring a one-off purchase and tangible reference for their shelves, or as part of a fully-searchable digital library available to institutions by annual subscription or on perpetual access (see www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com).

Humour claims no ideological affiliation – its workings merit inspection in any and every individual case, in light of the who, what, where and when of a joke, including the manner of performance, the socio-cultural context, the dynamic amongst participants, and who knows how many other factors particular to the instance. There are as many insights to be gained from the deployment of humour in performance as people to think about it – so herein lie a healthy handful of responses from a variety of perspectives.For the Sake of Sanity: Doing things with humour in Irish performance assembles a range of essays from practitioners, academics, and journalists, all of whom address the attempt to make an audience laugh in various Irish contexts over the past century. With a general emphasis on theatre, the collection also includes essays on film, television and stand-up comedy for those insights into practice, society and culture revealed uniquely through instances of humour in performance.