Wit and Whimsy: The Importance of Being Earnest, The Divine Comedy, The Comedy of Errors (The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People by Oscar Wilde/ The divine comedy by Dante Alighieri/ The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare)
Wit and Whimsy: The Importance of Being Earnest, The Divine Comedy, The Comedy of Errors (The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People by Oscar Wilde/ The divine comedy by Dante Alighieri/ The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare)

Author: Oscar Wilde

Publisher: Prabhat Prakashan

Published: 2024-06-22

Total Pages: 363

ISBN-13:

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Book 1: Indulge in the wit and satire of “The Importance of Being Earnest: A Trivial Comedy for Serious People by Oscar Wilde.” Oscar Wilde's comedic masterpiece explores the absurdities of Victorian society through mistaken identities, clever wordplay, and the pursuit of love. Filled with sparkling dialogue and social commentary, this play remains a timeless satire on societal conventions and the pursuit of trivialities. Book 2: Embark on a profound journey through the realms of the afterlife with “The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri.” Dante Alighieri's epic poem takes readers through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, guided by the poet Virgil and his beloved Beatrice. This monumental work, considered a pinnacle of world literature, delves into themes of sin, redemption, and the divine, offering a profound exploration of the human condition. Book 3: Delight in the comedic chaos of mistaken identity with “The Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare.” Shakespeare's early comedy unfolds a tale of twins separated at birth, leading to a series of mistaken identities, misunderstandings, and humorous complications. Filled with farcical elements and clever wordplay, this play showcases Shakespeare's mastery of comedic storytelling.

Playboys and Killjoys
Playboys and Killjoys

Author: Harry Levin

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1988-09-08

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 0195364309

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Harry Levin--one of America's major literary critics--offers a brilliant and original study of the whole world of comedy, concentrating on playwrights through the centuries, from Aristophanes and Plautus in classical times to Bernard Shaw and Bertolt Brecht and their recent successors. Viewing the comic repertory as a richly varied yet broadly unified whole, Levin provides a synthesis of theories and practice. Isolating two fundamental aspects of comedy--the ludicrous and irreverent "playboy," whom we laugh with, and the ridiculous and forbidding "killjoy," whom we laugh at--he traces the dialectical interplay of these components throughout history and across various cultures and media. While mainly focusing on the plays and the stage, with discussions of such major dramatists as Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Molière, and William Congreve, Levin also includes essays on such related topics as humor, satire, and games.

Writing About Literature
Writing About Literature

Author: Judith Woolf

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2005-02-16

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1134379994

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Writing about Literature combines detailed practical and scholarly advice with a sense of the scope and creative possibilities of literary criticism, empowering the student reader to make his or her own discoveries and experiments with language. In addition, it gives valuable guidance on adult language learning and translation skills for students of foreign literature. This handy, accessible guide covers all aspects of the essay-writing process, including: preliminary reading and choosing and researching a topic referencing and presentation computer use style, structure, vocabulary, grammar and spelling the art and craft of writing scholarly and personal insights into the problems and pleasures of writing about literature. Written in an entertaining and informative way and containing a wealth of practical advice and scholarly insights, this wise, witty and helpful book should be on every literature student's bookshelf.

Hell and Back
Hell and Back

Author: Tim Parks

Publisher: Arcade Publishing

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 9781559706100

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A brilliant new collection of essays on writers & writing by the man Joseph Brodsky has called "the best British author writing today."

The Language of Humor
The Language of Humor

Author: Don L. F. Nilsen

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-11-01

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 9781108403962

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Much of today's communication is carried out through various kinds of humor, and we therefore need to be able to understand its many aspects. Here, two of the world's leading pioneers in humor studies, Alleen and Don Nilsen, explore how humor can be explained across the numerous sub-disciplines of linguistics. Drawing on examples from language play and jokes in a range of real-life contexts, such as art, business, marketing, comedy, creative writing, science, journalism and politics, the authors use their own theory of 'Features, functions and subjects of Humor' to analyze humor across all disciplines. Each highly accessible chapter uses a rich array of examples to stimulate discussion and interaction even in large classes. Supplemental PowerPoints to accompany each of the 25 chapters are available online, taking many of the insights from the chapters for further interactional discussions with students.

Decadence and Catholicism
Decadence and Catholicism

Author: Ellis Hanson

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 426

ISBN-13: 9780674194441

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Romantic writers had found in Christianity a poetic cult of the imagination, an assertion of the spiritual quality of beauty in an age of vulgar materialism. The decadents, a diverse movement of writers, were the climax and exhaustion of this romantic tradition. In their art, they enacted the romance of faith as a protest against the dreariness of modern life. Ellis Hanson teases out two strands--eroticism and aestheticism--that rendered the decadent interest in Catholicism extraordinary. More than any other literary movement, the decadents explored the powerful historical relationship between homoeroticism and Roman Catholicism. Why, throughout history, have so many homosexuals been attracted to Catholic institutions that vociferously condemn homosexuality? This perplexing question is pursued in this elegant and innovative book. Late-nineteenth-century aesthetes found in the Church a peculiar language that gave them a means of artistic and sexual expression. The brilliant cast of characters that parades through this book includes Oscar Wilde, Charles Baudelaire, J.-K. Huysmans, Walter Pater, and Paul Verlaine. Art for these writers was a mystical and erotic experience. In decadent Catholicism we can glimpse the beginnings of a postmodern valorization of perversity and performativity. Catholicism offered both the hysterical symptom and the last hope for paganism amid the dullness of Victorian puritanism and bourgeois materialism.