{"product_id":"comedy-a-very-short-introduction-9780199601714","title":"Comedy: A Very Short Introduction","description":"To consider comedy in its many incarnations is to raise diverse but related questions: what, for instance, is humour, and how may it be used (or abused)? When do we laugh, and why? What is it that writers and speakers enjoy - and risk - when they tell a joke, indulge in bathos, talk nonsense, or encourage irony? \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis\u003cem\u003e Very Short Introduction\u003c\/em\u003e explores comedy both as a literary genre, and as a range of non-literary phenomena, experiences and events. Matthew Bevis studies the classics of comic drama, prose fiction and poetry, alongside forms of pantomime, comic opera, silent cinema, popular music, Broadway shows, music-hall, stand-up and circus acts, rom-coms, sketch shows, sit-coms, caricatures, and cartoons. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eTaking in scenes from Aristophanes to The Office, from the Roman Saturnalia to Groundhog Day, Bevis also considers comic theory from Aristotle to Freud and beyond, tracing how comic achievements have resisted as well as confirmed theory across the ages. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThis book takes comedy seriously without taking it solemnly, and offers an engaging study of the comic spirit which lies at the heart of our shared social and cultural life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMatthew Bevis is a Fellow in English at Keble College, University of Oxford. His publications include \u003cem\u003eLives of Victorian Literary Figures: Tennyson\u003c\/em\u003e (Pickering \u0026amp; Chatto, 2003), \u003cem\u003eSome Versions of Empson, \u003c\/em\u003e ed. (OUP, 2007), and\u003cem\u003e The Art of Eloquence: Byron, Dickens, Tennyson, Joyce \u003c\/em\u003e(OUP, 2007). He was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize for his research in 2007.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Oxford University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51705099190546,"sku":"9780199601714","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_2f684ce8-da59-4a0f-818a-19095b02a775.jpg?v=1762340381","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/comedy-a-very-short-introduction-9780199601714","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}