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
Pass.
ReplyDeleteNice job these are really good notes. You did a nice job summarizing the comedy paragraphs and your discussions of Huck Finn.