The death of comedy / Erich Segal.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Segal, Erich, 1937-2010.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Comedy--History and criticism.

Comedy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (608 p. ) ill.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In a grand tour of comic theatre over the centuries, Erich Segal traces the evolution of the classical form from its early origins in a misogynistic quip by the 6th-century BC Susarion, through countless weddings and happy endings, to the exasperated monosyllables of Samuel Beckett.

In a grand tour of comic theater over the centuries, Erich Segal traces the evolution of the classical form from its early origins in a misogynistic quip by the sixth-century B.C. Susarion, through countless weddings and happy endings, to the exasperated monosyllables of Samuel Beckett. With fitting wit, profound erudition lightly worn, and instructive examples from the mildly amusing to the uproarious, his book fully illustrates comedy's glorious life cycle from its first breath to its death in the Theater of the Absurd. An exploration of various landmarks in the history of a genre that flourished almost unchanged for two millennia, The Death of Comedy revisits the obscenities and raucous twists of Aristophanes, the neighborly pleasantries of Menander, the tomfoolery and farce of Plautus. Segal shows how the ribaldry of foiled adultery, a staple of Roman comedy, reappears in force on the stages of Restoration England. And he gives us a closer look at the schadenfreude --delight in someone else's misfortune--that marks Machiavelli's and Marlowe's works. At every turn in Segal's analysis--from Shakespeare to Moliere to Shaw--another facet of the comic art emerges, until finally, he argues, "the head conquers and the heart dies": Letting the intellect take the lead, Cocteau, Ionesco, and Beckett smother comedy as we know it. The book is a tour de force , a sweeping panorama of the art and history of comedy, as insightful as it is delightful to read.

Contents:

Preface 1. Etymologies: Getting to the Root of It 2. The Song of the Komos 3. The Lyre and the Phallus 4. Aristophanes: The One and Only? 5. Failure and Success 6. The Birds : The Uncensored Fantasy 7. Requiem for a Genre? 8. The Comic Catastrophe 9. O Menander! O Life! 10. Plautus Makes an Entrance 11. A Plautine Problem Play 12. Terence: The African Connection 13. The Mother-in-Law of Modern Comedy 14. Machiavelli: The Comedy of Evil 15. Marlowe: Schade and Freude 16. Shakespeare: Errors and Eros 17. Twelfth Night : Dark Clouds over Illyria 18. Moliere: The Class of '68 19. The Fox, the Fops, and the Factotum 20. Comedy Explodes 21. Beckett: The Death of Comedy Coda Notes Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references ([459]-576) and index.

ISBN:

9780674043411

0674043413

OCLC:

923116900