Description
From the time of Plato and Aristotle, philosophers and psychologists, along with experts from the social sciences and linguistics, have made vain attempts to formulate a general theory of comedy. Passing in review all the usual suspects, including Hobbes, Kant and Bergson, as well as several recent theorists of comedy from America, and while not of course forgetting Freud as well as authors such as Stendhal and Baudelaire, David Ellis suggests that, although comedy is undoubtedly an important topic, with profound implications for both social and private life, there have been better ways to pass one’s time than in a fruitless search for an overarching explanation of what it is and how it works.
Written in a jargon-free, entertaining style, with illustrations from both famous comic writers and present-day performers in Britain and America, this is a book that can be read with pleasure by all with an interest in comedy, whether they are specialists in the matter or not.
About the Author
David Ellis is emeritus professor of English Literature at the University of Kent. His many previous publications include a tribute to the Wittgensteinian Frank Cioffi, The philosopher in shirt-sleeves (Bloomsbury, 2017), and Blasted with Antiquity: Old Age and the Consolations of Literature which was published by the Lutterworth Press in 2023.
Contents
Chapter One: Opening Salvos
Chapter Two: What makes us laugh?
Chapter Three: Types of laughter
Chapter Four: Noël Carroll and the Incongruity Theory of comedy
Chapter Five: Kant’s examples
Chapter Six: Comedy as a social good?
Chapter Seven: Outsiders
Chapter Eight: Comedy and the individual
Chapter Nine: Concluding thoughts
End Notes
Select Bibliography
Endorsements and Reviews
‘With flawless erudition and delightful wit and irony, David Ellis conducts his reader through the jungle of definitions of comedy by philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists and writers of literature. He finds all such definitional endeavours flawed and futile. However, accompanying him on his journey we learn everything we could wish to know about what is funny, ridiculous, comic, ironic, ludicrous, witty, or satirical and their roles in private life, personal relationships, and their social, religious and political contexts. This book is a joy to read and very funny.’ Peter Hacker, Emeritus Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford
‘This book casts a sceptical eye over grand theories of comedy, from a perspective that is amused, amusing and deeply human. It presents a convincing and right-headed analysis that argues for rejecting reductive definitions and instead focusing on the specificity and nuance in particular comics texts. It’s a cracking read.’ Oliver Double, Reader in Comic and Popular Performance at the University of Kent
