Overview

In this broad-ranging exploration of the nature of comedy Professor Charney considers its popular roots as well as the major issues in comic theory. Comedy High and Low seeks to bridge the gap between comic literature, especially stage comedy, and the popular comedy of jokes, graffiti, and comic happenings of everyday life. With examples taken mainly from major figures of stage comedy from Aristophanes, Shakespeare, Jonson, the Restoration dramatists, and Moliere to Beckett, Pinter, Duerrenmatt, Stoppard, and Orton, it brings a historical perspective to the subject, and also includes many allusions to the great film comedies of Keaton, Chaplin, Fields, and the Marx Brothers. An extensive critical bibliography supplements this provocative and highly readable book.

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9780820405384

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The Author: Maurice Charney, Distinguished Professor of English at Rutgers University, is also the author of How to Read Shakespeare (1971), Style in 'Hamlet' (1969), and Shakespeare's Roman Plays: The Function of Imagery in the Drama (1961). He has edited numerous plays by Shakespeare and is special editor of Comedy: New Perspectives, the first issue of The New York Literary Forum.

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