3. In and out of character
Matthew Bevis
in Comedy: A Very Short Introduction
Is predictability the secret to good comedy? Character becomes comic as person is reduced to thing, and this thing-ness becomes something habitual. Comic character has a ridiculous ...
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2. Getting physical
Matthew Bevis
in Comedy: A Very Short Introduction
There is one word that is always associated with comedy: laughter. What does laughter do to us? ‘Getting physical’ considers comedy as a mode through which we organize our knowledge of the ...
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3. ‘Pleasant’
Christopher Wixson
in George Bernard Shaw: A Very Short Introduction
‘Pleasant’ examines the plays contained in George Bernard Shaw’s 1898 volume Plays Pleasant, namely Arms and the Man (1893–4), Candida (1894), The Man of Destiny (1895), and You Never Can ...
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1. In the beginning …
Matthew Bevis
in Comedy: A Very Short Introduction
‘In the beginning…’ examines the likely origins of comedy and asks: when was it born? The etymological roots of the word hint at obscure origins. Comedy can offer us reassurance. In Ancient ...
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5. Theatres of the body
John Phillips
in The Marquis de Sade: A Very Short Introduction
Sade was fascinated with the theatre. Throughout his adult life, he put much enthusiasm into putting on plays and even playing the leading roles himself. Sade wrote more than twenty plays, ...
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8. ‘O Muse, be obedient to the command of God’: The spiritual and material worlds
Catriona Kelly
in Russian Literature: A Very Short Introduction
‘“O Muse, be obedient to the command of God”: The spiritual and material worlds’ looks at Pushkin's early rejection of references to religion in his work, his generation's distrust of overt ...
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4. Time
Bart van Es
in Shakespeare's Comedies: A Very Short Introduction
‘Time’ considers the strange ways in which Shakespeare manipulates time. In 1570, Lodovico Castelvetro stated that the perfect comedy should be restricted to events lasting no longer than ...
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6. No laughing matter
Poole Adrian
in Tragedy: A Very Short Introduction
What is the connection between comedy and tragedy? Why do we find tragedy in the arts comic? If the brute matter of tragedy consists of pain, grief, death, and bereavement, laughter brings ...
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1. Who needs it?
Poole Adrian
in Tragedy: A Very Short Introduction
The meaning of tragedy has changed through history from something quite exceptional to something commonplace. The word derives from the Greek words, for ‘goat’ and ‘song’. We don't quite ...
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8. Endgames
Matthew Bevis
in Comedy: A Very Short Introduction
The speaker goes out a with a bang, not a whimper, and makes the best out of a bad situation. Such endings are at the centre of the human comedy because they play up the folly of it all ...
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Curtain raiser
Matthew Bevis
in Comedy: A Very Short Introduction
What does comedy mean? In Plato's Philebus, Socrates speaks of comedy ‘not only on the stage, but on the greater stage of human life; and so in endless other cases’. This isn't very helpful ...
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Epilogue: why might we enjoy tragedies?
Stanley Wells
in Shakespeare's Tragedies: A Very Short Introduction
‘Epilogue: why might we enjoy tragedies?’ considers why we pay good money to subject ourselves to displays of misery, cruelty, suicide, murder—even cannibalism. Perhaps central to the ...
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Comedy: A Very Short Introduction
Matthew Bevis
Comedy: A Very Short Introduction studies written forms of comedy such as prose fiction, poetry, caricatures, and cartoons. There are also performance forms of comedy such as ...
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Shakespeare's Comedies: A Very Short Introduction
Bart van Es
Shakespeare’s Comedies: A Very Short Introduction explores the full range of the playwright’s comic writing over the course of a career spanning nearly a quarter century of ...
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William Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction
Stanley Wells
William Shakespeare: A Very Short Introduction provides a guide to the life and writings of one of the world’s greatest and best-known dramatists: William Shakespeare. Looking ...
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3. Love
Bart van Es
in Shakespeare's Comedies: A Very Short Introduction
Shakespearean comedy is about getting the girl or the boy, but it is also about love, and one ingredient that makes this possible is the sonnet. ‘Love’ argues that love is not only a ...
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1. Introduction
Peter Hainsworth and David Robey
in Dante: A Very Short Introduction
The Introduction suggests that reading The Divine Comedy requires coming to terms not just with Dante’s views on morality, but with the comprehensive metaphysical and theological system ...
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Dante: A Very Short Introduction
Peter Hainsworth and David Robey
Dante: A Very Short Introduction examines the main themes and issues that run through all of Dante’s work, ranging from autobiography, to understanding God, and the order of ...
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4. Plotting mischief
Matthew Bevis
in Comedy: A Very Short Introduction
Good comedy has a knack of good timing and storytelling. It is the art of surprise, but established routine is what makes surprise possible. Jokes work because we expect the result, and our ...
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7. Beyond a joke
Matthew Bevis
in Comedy: A Very Short Introduction
Comedy rescues difficult situations. It helps dig people out of holes and help them deal with suffering. As Nietzsche has proclaimed: ‘Perhaps I know best why man alone laughs. He alone ...
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