The Cambridge introduction to comedy

About this book

How do we identify something as comedy? How does reading a comic text differ from reading other kinds of texts? How does comedy relate to social, cultural, and political issues? From Aristotle to the commedia dell'arte, from Wilde to Albee, this Introduction uses these and many other examples from the vast history and range of the comedy genre to investigate comedy's patterns, characteristics, and mechanisms. Focusing on dramatic texts, the book also refers to literature, film, and television throughout, exploring how comedy affects and inhabits other worlds and genres.