COMEDY

Andrew Stott

NEW YORK AND LONDON

First published 2005 by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledges collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. 2005 Andrew Stott All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Stott, Andrew, 1969 Comedy/Andrew Stott. p. cm. (The new critical idiom) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Comedy. I. Title. II. Series. PN1922.S78 2005 809.917dc22 2004010093 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0-203-31212-0 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-415-29932-2 (hbk) ISBN 0-415-29933-0 (pbk)

CONTENTS

SERIES EDITORS PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Introduction 1 Comedy in the Academy Plato and Aristotle Genre Trouble Fertility and the lan Vital: Cornford, Bergson, Langer Springtime and Festival: Frye and Barber Carnival and the Marketplace: Bakhtin and the New Historicism 2 Comic Identity Stereotypes Clowns, Fools, and Folly Tricksters Wit, Camp, and Bathos: Congreve, Wilde, Hancock 3 Gender and Sexuality Cross-dressing: As You Like It and Some Like It Hot Drag and Transvestism Marriage 4 The Body Beauty and Abjection

viii ix 1 17 18 20 24 28 31 39 40 45 49 53 59 60 66 71 79 80

vii

The Grotesque Slapstick The Female Body 5 Politics Comedy and the State: Frogs and Brass Eye Satire Alternative Comedy: Comedians and Comedians The End of Laughter? Three Holocaust Comedies 6 Laughter Christian Laughter Superiority and Incongruity Theories Relief Theory: Freud and Spencer Poststructuralist Laughters Conclusion GLOSSARY FURTHER READING BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

83 87 92 97 99 103 107 113 121 121 125 131 133 139 143 149 151 161