Class Notes: February 20-March 4

Class Notes: February 20-March 4

We’ve been studying comedy as well as reading Huckleberry Finn or Pride and Prejudice.

Humor is…

·         an appeal to intellect instead of emotion

·         mechanical

·         inherently human

·         concerning a certain set of societal norms

·         an action that is inconsistent with said societal norms

·         perceived as harmless or painless by the observer

·         If any of these is absent, the attempt at humor will FAIL.

“To that extent comedy may only appear to be more comforting than tragedy; its real view of life is not optimistic.  In tragedy the individual retains integrity even in death; in comedy the individual is made to conform” (Holmes’s handouts).

The theories of humor include…

·         “superiority theory”

·         “frustrated expectation” (incongruity theories)

·         “relief theory”

The techniques of humor to be familiar with…

·         Caricature (distinctive features/peculiarities are exaggerated)

·         Colloquialism (regional dialects)

·         Deflation (something is given an elevated status and then deflated)

·         Disparagement (to belittle)

·         Euphemism (a less offensive word for one that is normally taboo or unpleasant)

·         Hyperbole (exaggeration)

·         Incongruity (ex: Our Father, who art in heaven, / Howard be thy name)

·         Invective (harsh, abusive language)

·         Irony (verbal, situational, and/or dramatic)

·         Knaves and Fools (rogues and suckers)

·         Litotes (ex: “she’s not uninterested in boys”)

·         Malapropism (inappropriateness of a word resulting from a close word that means something entirely different)

·         Non-sequitur (conclusion that does not fit the evidence)

·         Oxymoron (ex: jumbo shrimp)

·         Paradox (statement that appears to contradict itself but is nevertheless true)

·         Parody (a work that closely imitates another and is meant to ridicule)

·         Pun (a play on words based on the similarity in sound of two words with different meanings)

·         Sarcasm (something that appears to be a compliment)

·         Stereotype (set of characteristics that are assigned to a group)

·         Understatement (when the literal sense of what is said is short of the reality)

·         Wit (clever uses of language to cause laughter)

Three aspects of incongruity

·         Literalization: taking a figure of speech and performing it literally

·         Reversal: simply reversing the normal, taking what is normal and expected and doing or saying the opposite

·         Exaggeration: taking what is normal and blowing it out of proportion

Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

·         A lampoon (or funny satire)

·         Also includes aspects of high comedy, low comedy, burlesque, etc.

·         Twain condemns the slavery institution and discusses two different freedoms: an intellectual one and a physical one