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Full-Text Articles in Dramatic Literature, Criticism and Theory
Behind The Stakes, Between The Lines, Beyond The Pun: A Critical Deconstruction Of Humor In William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, And Other Popular Comedies, Jaime Libby
Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects
Humor is a powerful rhetorical device employed at all levels of human discourse—from casual banter to political debate. Still, despite humor’s global prevalence, its historical transgressiveness, and its distinct potential both to neutralize and critically engage highly fraught issues, humans do not often pause to ask how humor works. And what does its working tell us about our humanness? This thesis explores the operation of humor in literature and performance, using tools provided by structuralist, deconstructive, and postmodern critical arenas, to reveal how humor’s fundamental structures invite humans to entertain new perspectives and practice empathy. The study considers irony, the …
Why Are Comedy Films So Critically Underrated?, Michael Arell
Why Are Comedy Films So Critically Underrated?, Michael Arell
Honors College
This study explores the lack of critical and scholarly attention given to the film genre of comedy. Included as part of the study are both existing and original theories of the elements of film comedy. An extensive look into the development of film comedy traces the role of comedy in a socio-cultural and historical manner and identifies the major comic themes and conventions that continue to influence film comedy. Ten comedy film case studies are then presented, analyzing the recurring themes and conventions in practice and extracting the existing critical language used in the analysis of comedy film. The final …