Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- Introduction: Thinking about comedy
- Chapter 1 Reading comedy
- Chapter 2 Comedy's foundations
- Chapter 3 Comedy's devices
- Chapter 4 Comedy in the flesh
- Chapter 5 Comedy's range
- Chapter 6 Comedy and society
- Notes
- Further reading
- List of texts
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Introductions to …
Introduction: Thinking about comedy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- Introduction: Thinking about comedy
- Chapter 1 Reading comedy
- Chapter 2 Comedy's foundations
- Chapter 3 Comedy's devices
- Chapter 4 Comedy in the flesh
- Chapter 5 Comedy's range
- Chapter 6 Comedy and society
- Notes
- Further reading
- List of texts
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Introductions to …
Summary
First things
Consider the following series of questions. When you reach for a film in the Comedy section of the local video store, what are the inferred promises which have narrowed your search to this particular category? As you settle in to watch the film, what effect does knowing that it is considered a comedy have on the way you watch it, the way you process information, the way you form expectations about what will happen, and, eventually, how you describe it to other people? Or why, on the other hand, might you have chosen to avoid a film which appears in the Comedy section?
In fact, anyone old enough to be reading this book already knows a good deal about comedy. By virtue of being raised somewhere within the force field of Western culture, you have unwittingly acquired a set of guidelines and expectations as to something of the label's connotation in our society and (perhaps more importantly) what it means to you.
This book will attempt to illuminate these things you know without knowing about comedy, and otherwise seek to augment your current level of expertise on the subject. Its overarching project is to assist you in reading comedy from the page – particularly with regard to dramatic texts – more confidently, more knowledgeably, and, should you be so inclined, with a sharper analytical eye.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Introduction to Comedy , pp. 1 - 19Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2009