230429 Comedy: Changing Concepts of Theatrical Humour (S) (SoSe 2015)

What makes people laugh? And why do people laugh about some jokes at one particular point in time, while later generations fail to get what’s so funny? What is humour and what are its cultural functions? Does humour change culture or does culture change humour? How does humour work on the stage, and why is a comedy always more than merely an entertainment? Discussing a broad variety of theatre plays, this seminar will inquire into the nature and practices of humour as employed on the British stage since the Early Modern period.

-William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors (1594?)
-Ben Jonson, Volpone (1606)
-George Etherege, The Man of Mode (1667)
-Richard Brinsley Sheridan, The School for Scandal (1777)
-Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest (1895)
-Alan Ayckbourn, Bedroom Farce (1975)
-Jez Butterworth, Jerusalem (2009)

Requirements for participation, required level

Students are expected to have passed BM 2 and at least one profile module in literary studies. All particpiants will need to have a firm grip of the basic categories of drama analysis (character constellation and configuration, characterisation techniques, theatre semiotics, plot structures, etc.).

Bibliography

A reader containing all six plays will be available at my secretary's office (Frau Wölffing, room C4-204) ca. two weeks before the beginning of the semester. Note that possession of the reader is an obligatory prerequisite for admittance to the seminar.