Comedy: The Master of Discourse

by SusanPurdie (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1992

  $5.30

  From Aristophanes to Ayckbourn, from Shakespeare and shaggy-dog stories to light-bulb jokes and banter about the weather, this book offers a comprehensive analysis of the nature and function of comedy in our society. Drawing on theories of language from Foucault, Levi-Strauss and Lacan, Purdie turns traditional approaches to comedy inside out and shows how joking is not only a pleasurable but also a necessary function of using language.