Modern Comedy Research Articles

Conversation Implications in the Stand Up Comedy "Youtuber Many Haters" on Raditya Dika's Youtube Chanel

Stand Up Comedy is a form of modern comedy art performance. Raditya Dika is an Indonesian comic who is well-known and widely recognized in the world of stand-up comedy. He is also known as a writer, director, and actor. Raditya Dika's comedy style tends to rely on his personal experience and observations of everyday life. He uses a spontaneous, honest, and often absurd storytelling style, which makes the audience laugh. This type of research is descriptive qualitative. This study aims to describe the types of implicatures in the stand-up comedy show "Youtubers Lots of Haters" on Raditya Dika's youtube channel. This study uses the method of free engagement talk, recording, and taking notes. The results of this study indicate that there are 2 types of implicature, namely conventional and non-conventional. the results of the conversational implicature analysis conducted by the author on Raditya Dika's Stand Up Comedy entitled Youtuber Many Haters which aired on December 19 2017 on Raditya Dika's YouTube channel, researchers found conventional implicature and non-conventional implicature. The researcher also found 4 implicature functions, namely Assertive function, Expressive function, Directive function, and Commissive function. However, in this stand-up comedy, the researcher did not find a declarative function because the text is more likely to express the author's emotions, opinions, invitations, or intentions than to convey factual statements.

The Love Match by Priyanka Taslim

Reviewed by: The Love Match by Priyanka Taslim Aaren Tucker The Love Match By Priyanka Taslim The Love Match begins with a wedding, and in her introductory note about Bangali films (natoks), author Priyanka Taslim clarifies the stakes that such an opening scene brings: “if a natok ends with a wedding, it’s almost always a happily-ever-after. . . . if it begins with one . . . let’s just say it’s asking for nothing but trouble.” Trouble does indeed follow Zahra Khan in this delightful modern comedy of manners, inspired by Taslim’s reflections on the parallels between Austenian regency romances, her own family’s persistent matchmaking attempts, and the Deshi social politics of their “colorful Bangladeshi, Muslim diaspora community.” While Zahra’s friends are excitedly preparing to go away to college, Zahra has had to put her dreams of studying creative writing at Columbia University on hold to work at a tea shop (punnily called Chai Ho) to help support her mother and two younger siblings after her father’s death. That’s enough stress for a high school senior, but now she must contend with her mother’s plan to marry her off to Harun, the son of the wealthy Emon family. The new-money Emons are interested in Zahra’s royal lineage, and Amma is interested in the Emons’ wealth: it’s a match made in Bangladeshi auntie heaven. However, Amma’s perfect plans are complicated by Harun’s cold, smug demeanor and Zahra’s crush on Nayim, the new dishwasher at Chai Ho. Since neither Harun nor Zahra can stand to disappoint their families, they hatch their own plan; they will pretend to date while doing everything they can to convince their parents they would be a total disaster as a couple. That leaves Zahra free to get closer to Nayim while Amma is distracted, but as Shakespeare said, the course of true love never did run smooth. Taslim has crafted a realistic love story, peopled with richly developed characters and a wide variety of circumstances, relationships, and troubles for her refreshingly self-assured heroine to navigate. Zahra is an admirable descendant of many Austen heroines: sharp, witty, and observant as Elizabeth Bennet, youthfully short-sighted like Emma Woodhouse, but also possessing the steady character and sense of purpose of Eleanor Dashwood. Her relationships with her friends offer tender yet complex explorations of friendships marked by both true affection and class insecurities. With a frankness that at times is almost grim, Zahra muses over her bitter feelings as her friends prepare to go to college while she is staying behind: “Dread cracks open inside me, gaping and raw. Things are changing between us, whether I want them to or not.” The Bangladeshi immigrant community of Taslim’s Paterson, New Jersey, like Austen’s Regency upper class, is concerned with the social dynamics of marriage, [End Page 111] as gossip-filled drawing room conversations get a modern refresh with the Auntie Network group chat, in which Zahra’s mother and family discuss who’s who in marriageability. Zahra’s two suitors represent two different paths she can take in her life. Nerdy Harun is dependable and steady, and the romance between him and Zahra is built on a foundation of friendship and shared values; romantic Nayim is charming and spontaneous, supporting Zahra’s dreams and encouraging her creativity. Readers can easily see how both boys could be a good match for Zahra, and Taslim avoids making either one a villain. Though Zahra does make a choice and achieve a satisfying happy ending with one of them, the book thankfully avoids the traditional natok and Austenesque ending of a marriage for the eighteen-year-old protagonists. Taslim’s writing style keenly balances the sometimes crushing weight of social pressures with a light, humorous touch, ultimately creating an optimistic future for her characters. While grounded and mature, this stunning debut still offers readers all the drama, twists, and tropes to satisfy any lover of soapy romance, and it wholly deserves a place alongside other great Austen-inspired works, like the 1995 film Clueless. Copyright © 2022 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

The Imperturbable Seriousness of the Circus Buffoon: The Shakespearean Clown on the Threshold of Modern Comedy

Abstract Around the middle of the nineteenth century, there arose a type of circus performer in England called ‘Shakespearean clowns’. These clowns constituted a transitory figure between the age of Georgian pantomime clowns and the establishment of the typical circus clown in the later part of the century. One of the more neglected representatives of the genre was James Clement Boswell, who enjoyed a brief period of success in England before becoming a sensation in Paris during the 1850s. Although he was universally praised, his clowning also evoked bafflement. This article studies reviews of and periodical articles on Boswell in order to get a picture of his performances and clown persona, and of how critics perceived him and turned him into an example of the melancholy clown trope. The resistance that Boswell’s act and persona offered to the writers, however, illustrates that he was part of a change in the figure of the clown from its early nineteenth century incarnation to the twentieth-century clown and comic. Boswell’s clowning prefigures the irony and deadpan comedy that would become more prevalent in modern comedy. He is also illustrative of the increasing detachment of the clown figure from representations of a social reality, and the creation of the modern circus clown as an essentially unreal character that epitomizes a separate outlook on life.

Class struggle in the Forsyte chronicles

ABSTRACT John Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga has had a mixed critical reception. In many ways Galsworthy has never properly recovered from the twin assaults on his work by Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence in the 1920s. Moreover, the success of his work on television, especially the 1967 series, which helped define the nature of modern costume drama, has only served to marginalise his work as high-brow literature. This essay argues that Galsworthy is a serious writer concerned to analyse and elucidate class politics, as the opening sentence of the first novel in the sequence of Forsyte novels, The Man of Property (1906), demonstrates. In the first three novels Galsworthy sought to analyse the outlook and class-bound perceptions of the upper-middle classes, to which he belonged. In the second part of the sequence, A Modern Comedy, he attempted to widen his focus, and analyse the nature of other classes, in particular, the working class; and, in the third, he explored the ideology of the upper classes. As he was painfully aware, The Forsyte Saga, a work influenced by French realism and naturalism, was most successful when Galsworthy was writing about what he knew, i.e. the upper-middle classes. The novel sequence faltered and its satire dissipated when Galsworthy tried to produce a more comprehensive analysis of English society, but his literary ambition should be recognised, as should the experimental nature of his work, which sought to make the subject of class central to the English novel.

Shakespeare’s Art of Entanglement: The Tempest’s Tragicomic Dramaturgy of Knotting and Untying

ABSTRACT This article proposes that via its dense knot imagery and actions of (un)tying knots on stage, The Tempest offers metadramaturgic commentary on the playwright's task of (dis)entanglement, the skill of creating and resolving a complex dramatic action. Early modern tragedy and comedy theory derived from Aristotle's Poetics helps to understand how Prospero's magically devised play, to a degree congruous with The Tempest itself, in its tragicomic mode creates and partly unties an exquisitely tied knot. Rather than pursuing a purely formalist concern, my new formalist reading of The Tempest examines how the knot as an image-cluster itself ties together various early modern concerns, such as the knot knowledge of seafaring, the Tudor and Stuart predilection for knot gardens, bondage in the contexts of colonialism and European courts, mutual binding in the imagery of romance and marriage, and the practice of delivery as an untying of the child and its sublimation in discourses of science and magic.

7. Stylistic Considerations on Scene No. 8 from the Musical Performance PreȚioasele Ridicole [The Affected Young Ladies] by Vasile Spătărelu

Abstract Molière is one of the playwrights who not only marked and defined the seventeenth century in France, but, creator of the modern comedy and discoverer of the authentic comic, contributed fully to educating the public in his present and for the future. His comedies have stood the test of time, as they resonated with the audience, which found itself in them. In the twentieth century, his plays entered the artistic territories adjacent to the theater trough other creators, who turned them into film scripts and librettos for musical theater. The subject of our research is a fragment pertaining to the farcePrețioasele ridicole [The Affected Young Ladies] turned into a musical show under the signature of Vasile Spătărelu. An important name in Romanian music, creator with great melodic imagination, harmonic refinement and perfect literary taste, the composer from Iași made a possible compositional model for the genre, which is part of the Romanian musical show’s route opened by Paul Constantinescu and Pascal Bentoiu. His work is distinguished by the stylistic area to which it adheres, by rhythm and vivacity, by the original combination between the spoken and the sung text, by the ingenious architecture of the scenes, by the adequacy of the writing technique to the desired effect and expression. Fully requesting all the resources of the interpreters, we consider that the analysis of the important moments is very useful to them. If pages of theatrical exegesis were dedicated to the characters Magdelon and Cathos, for Mascaril we did not identify something similar, much less a stylistic-interpretive analysis from a musical perspective. In order to achieve a complete characterization of the character, useful to potential student performers, we will comment on the first segments of the Scene no.8 in which Mascaril’s “identity” is established, as he presents himself in front of the two “precious ones”. (the entrance and the monologue).

Humor, Psyche, and Society: A Socio-Semiotic Analysis

Humor, Psyche, and Society: A Socio-Semiotic Analysis

Airy Agency in Early Modern English Drama: Ho Trilogy

ABSTRACT This article aims to analyse three early modern city comedies, which are Thomas Dekker and John Webster's Westward Ho and Northward Ho, and Ben Jonson, George Chapman and John Marston's Eastward Ho, to point to the intra-action between the human body and air. The analyses of these plays provide an insight into how air pollution and early phases of toxicity in the city shows the influence of the airy agency on human and nonhuman bodies. In this context, these three city comedies mention the difference between urban (polluted) and rural (fresh) air. The aim of this study is, thus, to trace the impacts of the airy agency in the early modern period on the human body, life, nature, and culture with references to the Ho trilogy.

“You Think I'm Joking”: Examining the Weaponized Comedy of President Obama's Stand-Up Addresses at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner

ABSTRACT Satire and stand-up comedy are forms of cultural examination generally perceived as tools used by everyday citizens against the powerful and not by the powerful themselves. This article examines the less-analyzed side of stand-up comedy and satire as malleable instruments of cultural interrogation when employed by powerful agents such as President Obama. Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin's concept of carnival and Henri Bergson's concept of humor as a form of social corrective in my textual analysis of his stand-up addresses, this article interprets how Obama's on-the-offensive, comically insulting addresses provided a unique way for him to attempt to normalize political criticisms and controversies, such as the “birther theory” and his administration's drone program. In its interpretation of a substantial satirical and comic strategy within Obama's stand-up addresses, this article reflects on the nature of modern satire and stand-up comedy and their complex relationship with forms of American power.

LANGUAGE STYLE OF HUMOR ON STAND-UP COMEDY VIDEO

This research explained about language styles which used in stand-up comedy script brought by Chris Rock. Chris Rock owns famous joke material that is affected by the black comedy pioneers like Richard Pryor and Redd. He attacked the subject of much avoided by comics such as politics, race and celebrity. Openness and honesty witch extremely bold that what makes Chris Rock as one of the most successful and a famous comic in modern comedy. Chris Rock is known for his insulting comedian, he is also known for using satire and surreal in his joke. Language style has several functions in its uses. Stand up comedy brought by Chris Rock is usually shows about the different in human right between black and white skin.Based on the description above, the researcher decided to research language style in stand-up comedy brought by Chris Rock. In this research the researcher uses Keraf (2007) to analyze the language styles. This research is a qualitative descriptive research. This research source of data is stand-up comedy script with tittle “kill the messenger” brought by Chris Rock. Based on research, there are 2 language styles used in “kill the messenger”, there are 10 rhetorical language styles and 17 figurative language styles. Based on the data, hyperbole rhetorical language style is dominantly used in “kill the messenger”. And Epithet figurative language is dominantly used too.The reason is because Chris Rock is still try to persuade the white skin American to be humble to black skin American and must respect to each other. Keywords: Language Styles, Humor, Stand-Up Comedy

Women, Rhetoric, and Drama in Early Modern Italy by Alexandra Coller

Reviewed by: Women, Rhetoric, and Drama in Early Modern Italy by Alexandra Coller Caterina Mongiat Farina WOMEN, RHETORIC, AND DRAMA IN EARLY MODERN ITALY, by Alexandra Coller. New York: Routledge, 2017. 282 pp. $155.00 cloth; $54.95 ebook. Imagine a place where women own property and support themselves independently, speak and move freely, and can be with a person of their choice. Margherita Costa did just that with the fictional realm of Fessa in her comedy Li buffoni (1641; The Buffoons, 2018). This is only one of the masterpieces discussed in Alexandra Coller’s revisionist canon of Italian drama delineated with philological rigor and critical ingenuity in Women, Rhetoric, and Drama in Early Modern Italy. As Coller explains in the introduction, her book challenges the notion of tragicomedy as the only original genre of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Italian drama to argue that early modern comedy, tragedy, and pastoral tragicomedy share a claim to originality for the following reasons: their quantitative and qualitative shift in depicting female characters, their common predilection for Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron (c. 1351) in addition to the more obvious classical sources, and their rhetorical choices in signaling cultural and literary shifts in gender representations, which opened new creative possibilities for both male and female playwrights (pp. 1–2). The book is divided in two parts. In the first part (chapters 1–2), Coller focuses on women characters in comedies and tragedies written by men and, in the second part (chapters 3–5), on pastorals written by women. Yet the chapters in part one are felicitously complicated by codas discussing the first extant comedy authored by a woman and the first extant tragedy authored by a woman, respectively. In the first chapter, Coller identifies Ruzante’s L’Anconitana (The Woman from Ancona, 1994), for which she follows Linda Carroll’s dating of 1517–1518, as an early example in fiction of women crossdressing as men for reasons other than love. Coller unveils the ways in which the protagonist Isotta (crossdressed as Gismondo) uses her virtù (skill) in “feminine” arts like fashion together with her rhetorical prowess in speech to fend for herself and teach other women how to achieve grace: “Ruzante is putting forward a female figure who can instruct and dispute” (p. 30). In Coller’s reconstructed canon, which includes among other comedies Alessandro Piccolomini’s Alessandro (1544), Niccolò Secchi’s Gl’inganni (1547; Deceits), Luca Contile’s Cesarea Gonzaga (1550), and Giambattista Della Porta’s Cintia (1601), Ruzante’s women characters establish the originality and preeminence of his comedy. Costa’s Li buffoni joins this canon by exploring the traditionally male genre of comedy. Coller’s fascinating hypothesis is that Costa’s protagonist Marmotta, a noblewoman that leads the utopian realm of Fessa, might have been inspired by Grand Duchess Vittoria della Rovere [End Page 446] and her female-centered court of Poggio Imperiale, where fiction and history converge regarding the emancipation of women. Differing conceptions of virtù, understood in chapter two as the more traditional “moral virtue” rather than “skill,” and friendship emerge from the juxtaposition of Giambattista Giraldi Cinzio’s and Ludovico Dolce’s tragedies with Valeria Miani’s Celinda (1611) (p. 77). Collectively, the heroines Selene and Eufimia (Cinzio), Marianna and Medea (Dolce), Celinda (Miani), and their female friends argue through eloquent words and deeds that friendship (including friendship between husband and wife) rests on equality and loyalty and that men often fail at one or both of these principles. Coller, here as throughout the book, excels at integrating the complex and necessary synopses of the plays into her rhetorical and critical analysis. The extended coda on Miani’s Celinda gives Coller the opportunity to explore in detail Boccaccio’s influence on certain episodes of the protagonist’s love affair. Part two begins with an eye-opening comparison of satyr scenes in the male canon (Tasso and Battista Guarini are here joined by Agostino Beccari, Luigi Groto, Giovan Maria Avanzi, and Cesare Cremonini among others) with a diverse collection of women-authored pastorals including Isabella Andreini’s Mirtilla (1588), Maddalena Campiglia’s Flori (1588), Barbara Torelli Benedetti’s Partenia (1586), Leonora Bernardi’s Tragicomedia pastorale (Pastoral tragicomedy) written in...

Leone X: Finanza, mecenatismo, cultura. Atti del convegno internazionalae, Roma, 2-4 novembre 2015 ed. by Flavia Cantatore, et al.

Reviewed by: Leone X: Finanza, mecenatismo, cultura. Atti del convegno internazionalae, Roma, 2-4 novembre 2015ed. by Flavia Cantatore, et al. Nelson H. Minnich Leone X: Finanza, mecenatismo, cultura. Atti del convegno internazionalae, Roma, 2-4 novembre 2015. Edited by Flavia Cantatore, C. Casetti Brach, Anna Esposito, F. Frova, D. Gallavotti Cavallero, P. Piacentini, F. Piperno, and C. Ranieri. 2 tomes. [ Roma nel Rinascimento, Inedita, Saggi, 69.] (Rome: Roma nel Rinascimento. 2016. Pp. viii, 814, 184 illustrations. €100,00; €80,00 for members. ISBN 978-88-85913-95-0.) This collection of thirty-nine studies, all but one in Italian, is grouped under the themes: "The New Age of Gold," "International Equilibria," "Ceremonies, Music, Spectacle," "Cultural Patronage," "The Arts, the Court, the City," "Literature and Entertainments," and "Gold and Money between the Curia and City." The studies demonstrate how Leo X reversed his predecessors' marginalization of Rome's municipal administrative powers and respected its communal prerogatives, thus initiating a new "golden age" for the Eternal City. The first section studies Leo X's influence on local institutions. Carla Frova traces the Medici pope's efforts to make the University of Rome a leading institution of learning by attracting to its faculty prominent scholars. Vincenzo de Caprio shows how Pietro Bembo's theories on imitation of classical Ciceronian and Virgilian Latin, as found in his published correspondence of 1512 with Gianfrancesco Pico, influenced the Latin and Italian literary style of the Roman court and curia. Luciano Palermo claims that Leo X has been unfairly depicted as a spendthrift. He followed in the footsteps of his predecessors who overspent their incomes, and he was reorganizing papal finances according to "reasons of state" when overtaken by a premature death. Maurizio Gargano studies the letter of Raphael and Baldessar Castiglione addressed to Leo X that proposed a subtle architectural plan for the city that combined three components: ancient Roman (rescuing ruins), Christian (churches, hospital), and Medicean (the imposing Madama palace near Piazza Navona and a new via Leonina [via della Scrofa-via di Ripetta] leading northward toward Florence). Alessandro Zuccari studies the function and decorations with Medicean themes of the Villa Madama on the slope of Monte Mario designed by Raphael and Sangallo where Leo X went to relax. The second section is dedicated to Leo X's efforts to fashion an equilibrium with foreign powers. Elena Valeri studies Leo's caution and dissimulation in trying to preserve some modicum of Italian independence when confronted with the rivalry among France, the Empire, and Spain for dominance of the Italian peninsula. Using the correspondence of Bernardo Divizi, Marcello Simonetta follows Leo's oscillating stance regarding Francis I's intentions for Milan and Naples following the death of Louis XII. The third section is dedicated to ceremonials, music, and spectacle. Anthony M. Cummings shows how the frottolist Michele Pesenti da Verona evolved into a "proto-madrigalist" due to the aesthetic tastes of the Leonine court. Marzia Pieri studies the various types of comedic performances (classical and modern) that briefly flourished in various settings (laboratories) around Rome under Leo X and [End Page 365]points to Francesco de' Nobili (Cherea) as the founder of modern comedy. Klaus Pietschmann documents Giovanni dei Medici's passionate interest and expertise in music just before his election as pope, a strategy for increasing his reputation, evident in the treatise Regule florum musices(1510) of Pietro Cannuzzi, O.F.M., dedicated to the cardinal. Section four contains ten essays devoted to patronage and culture. Among the figures and objects studied are the curial official and patron Baldassarre Turrini by Outi Merisalo; the Greek scholar, printer, and tutor Angelo Barbato by Francesca Niutta; the former tutor and papal adviser Bernardo Michelozzi by Claudia Corfiati; the urban poets of Leonine Rome by Stefano Benedetti; Erasmus' advice to the pope on promoting peace by Davide Canfora; the oration by Blosio Polladio and the poem of Caio Silvano Germanico on the occasion of the installation of the statue of Leo X in the Campidoglio by Rosanna Pettinelli; and the statue sculpted by Domenico Aimo da Varignana and its fate by Angela Quattrocchi. Some of the chronicles describing Leo X's procession to take possession of...

СУЧАСНІ ГУМОРИСТИЧНІ ШОУ-ПРОГРАМИ НА ЕСТРАДІ УКРАЇНИ: КОНЦЕПЦІЯ ЗАДУМУ ТА ДІЙОВІ ОЗНАКИ

Мета роботи. Висвітлити концептуальні вимоги до творчого задуму режисера-постановника сучасних гумористичних шоу-програм, надати характеристику дійовим ознакам комедійних номерів, обґрунтувати принципи жанрового плану даних форм та систематизувати основні складові професійних компетенцій режисера і артиста естради. Методологія дослідження полягає у застосуванні мистецтвознавчого, функціонального, аналітичного, системного методів дослідження сучасних гумористичних шоу-програм на естраді України, їх професійного створення за законами сценічного мистецтва, здійснення аналізу головних вимог щодо концепції даних вистав та номеру як складової цілісного дійства, та структуризації професійних компетенцій режисера і артиста. Наукова новизна. Вперше систематизовані основні складові професійних компетенцій режисера і артиста естради, визначені дійові ознаки комедійного номеру, розроблені концептуальні вимоги щодо створення гумористичних шоу-програм. У результаті здійсненого дослідження можна зробити висновок, що авторам, постановникам, виконавцям сучасних гумористичних шоу-програм необхідно дотримуватися професійних компетенцій, обов’язково виконувати у своїй художній діяльності на сценічних підмостках естради головні завдання творчої майстерності, враховуючи дійові ознаки жанрового плану номеру та вистави загалом.

Early Modern Comedy and the Politics of Religion: Reconsidering Comedy in Rospigliosi's Il Sant'Alessio

ABSTRACTGiulio Rospigliosi and Stefano Landi's 1634 revisions of Il Sant'Alessio for the Barberini stage expanded the role of comedy within the opera. These revisions reveal an important juncture in the history of religious comedy and lay the foundation for the development of a comic rubric for the still-developing operatic genre. This article examines the legend of St Alexis and its potential for historic reinterpretation in light of the Barberini family's religious and political goals. Its consideration of the interrelationship of religion and comedy in early modern sacred drama provides the theoretical context for an analysis of scenes in the 1634 version featuring the comic pages Martio and Curtio. Operating as a mitigating force between the extreme ideologies presented by the characters of Sant'Alessio and the Devil, the pages’ comedy promotes a more widespread acceptance of key religious ideals and becomes the driving force behind a significant political statement for post-Tridentine Rome.

Nihilistic light entertainment and metamorphic linkages: dada and contemporary comedy

ABSTRACTThis article traces the metamorphic linkages between the performances of the early twentieth century Dada movement and their continuation in a form of ‘nihilistic light entertainment’ evident within contemporary comedy. The Dadaists’ preferred style of fusing music and a form of comedy was a key element of their ‘Cabaret Voltaire’. This synthesis was a peculiar performative experiment central to the German Expressionist artistic cabaret. This article posits that the Dadaist cabaret formula has been incorporated into the work of some contemporary comedians. In the UK, the alternative comedy movement in the 1980s spawned a mainstream TV incarnation, the post-modern music hall act of Reeves and Mortimer. Contemporaneously, in the US, the Dada Cabaret's meld of performance art, stand-up comedy and music is evident in the improvisations and apparent spontaneities (the non sequiturs and incongruities) employed by comedians: Zach Galifianakis, Reggie Watts and Eric Andre. In embracing the comedic style of the Cabaret Voltaire, these artists apply music as an artistic device within their performance work. In this article, these metamorphic linkages, along with notions of how improvisation and spontaneity also featured within the Dada's anarchic aleatory art experimentations will be evaluated to position the idea of neo-Dadaist strain within modern comedy.

In Plain Sight: Strictly Dynamite, Modern Comedy, and the Hidden Legacy of Henri Bergson

In Plain Sight: Strictly Dynamite, Modern Comedy, and the Hidden Legacy of Henri Bergson

Shakespearean Sensations: Experiencing Literature in Early Modern England. Edited by Katharine A. Craik and Tanya Pollard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. v+244.

<i>Shakespearean Sensations: Experiencing Literature in Early Modern England</i>. Edited by Katharine A. Craik and Tanya Pollard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. v+244.

Translating Quotidian Humor for the Contemporary Stage: José Luis Alonso de Santos's La estanquera de Vallecas

José Luis Alonso de Santos is the most commercially successful Spanish playwright of the post-Franco period in Spain. Although he has written across a wide range of dramatic forms and genres, he is best known for his modern comedies that have frequently been inspired more by cinematic than theatrical forms. On the one hand, a number of critics have accused him of playing to the gallery and repeating himself; conversely, however, his capacity to imbue conventional forms with contemporary characters and concerns has not only endeared him to a broad range of audiences but also warrants his inclusion within the canon of twentieth-century Spanish theater. Having previously translated his most popular and endearing play, Bajarse al moro, into English, I will begin this article with a discussion of the tragicomic humor in La estanquera de Vallecas, his first success, whose colloquial street dialogue marked a controversial break with the prevalent strain of literary and rhetorical theater in Spain. I will focus my discussion on how and why the humor derives from the play's intersection with quotidian urban concerns (rising crime, unemployment, etc.) and a dialectical interplay between imported cinematic forms and national theatrical traditions. This will pave the way for a discussion of the translation of theater into and out of Spanish on the page and stage in both pedagogical and professional environments.

A new way to please you: Helen of Troy in early modern comedy

Helen of Troy most commonly featured in early modern English literature as an example of unsurpassed beauty, or as an unfaithful and sexually voracious woman. Inextricably linked to the fall of Troy, Helen was associated with feminine unreliability, the deaths of worthy men, and the fall of a great city. This article explores a less common use of Helen's myth, demonstrating how early modern playwrights including Shakespeare, Heywood and Shirley found comic potential in her story, and repackaged a well‐worn story of betrayal in new and innovative ways, making sport of Helen's reputation, of Helen‐like women, and of the men infatuated by this icon.

:Playing Dirty: Sexuality and Waste in Early Modern Comedy

:<i>Playing Dirty: Sexuality and Waste in Early Modern Comedy</i>