230569 Comedy of Manners: The Battle Between the Sexes (S) (SoSe 2008)

A "comedy of manners" takes a humorous, ironic and often even cynical look at the fact that what makes romantic relationships so difficult is not usually high tragedy à la Romeo and Juliet, but common human weaknesses like selfishness, cowardice and vanity. Although this subgenre of comedy is as old as comedy itself, we will begin by reading two Restoration masterpieces, one by a man (William Wycherley, The Country Wife, 1675) and one by a woman (Aphra Behn, The Rover, 1677). We will then leap forward to Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) and thence to the Hollywood screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby (1938, dir. Howard Hawks, with Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant) and Alan Ayckbourn's Chorus of Disapproval (1984; film version 1988, dir. Michael Winner, with Anthony Hopkins and Jeremy Irons).

Please read at least the Restoration comedies before the semester starts! The Wycherley (ed. John Dixon Hunt), Behn (ed. Marion Lomax) and Wilde (ed. Russell Jackson) are available in the New Mermaids Series; the Ayckbourn will be made available in the first session.

Profilbezogene Praxisstudien possible.