Description
Book SynopsisHere is a witty and learned literary excursion into the world of humour and comic literature as revealed inter alia by the works of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Oliver Goldsmith and Henry Fielding – leading in the second half to some glorious insights and observations provided by author’s life experience in the world of diplomacy. It is a rich and fascinating mix of literary idiom, the theatre of the absurd and the comic element of the human condition.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements
Induction
Chapter 1: BEN JONSON AND HIS SOURCES
Classical literary sources (Decorum, the comedies of Plautus and Terence, the Ridiculous)
Medieval Sources: the Morality Play and the Interludes
The Great Chain and Man as Microcosm
Ancient medical theory and Renaissance psychology
The character sketch
Early Humour plays
(George Chapman, Henry Porter)
Chapter 2: HUMOROUS CHARACTERIZATION IN THE COMEDIES OF BEN JONSON
In humour
Out of humour
Volpone, Epicoene, The Alchemist, Bartholomew Fair
Chapter 3: THE INFLUENCE OF JONSON ON SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURY COMEDY
Richard Brome
James Shirley
Thomas Shadwell
Colley Cibber
The Sons of Ben
Margareth Cavendish
Aphra Behn
James Miller
Oliver Goldsmith
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Chapter 4: THE INTRUSION OF HUMOROUS CHARACTERIZATION INTO THE ENGLISH NOVEL
Henry Fielding
Tobias Smollett
Chapter 5: THE MEANING OF THE COMIC
Chapter 6: NOMADIC HUMOURS
Where did the humours go
Berlin 1900
Fabulous
Hilarious
An ever-closer union
Identity mix-up
Chameleon
An exchange of notes
Visiting card
Holy See
Sisyphean diplomatic challenge
Laughter above
The laughing philosopher
Chapter 7: UNCONSCIOUS REVELATION
Postscript
Bibliography
Index
