On a gloomy late-autumn Monday (at least here in London), I’m sure I can’t be the only one who might be on the look out for something to lighten the mood…
With impeccable timing, Continuum Literary Studies is coming to the rescue with our latest publication: The Comic Mode in English Literature. Starting in the middle ages and going right up to the present this book is a wide-ranging look at comedy in literary history: Chaucer’s in here; there’s a chapter on Shakespeare’s Falstaff; Pope, Austen, Wilde and Beckett all make appearances and there’s even a chapter on Bridget Jones’s Diary.
For those of us who are serious about our comedy, humorous literature can often prove trickier to analyse seriously than apparently weightier genres like tragedy or epic. Accessibly written by a very experienced teacher (Murray Roston of Bar Ilan University, Israel and UCLA), this book starts with a quick critical survey of historical theories of comedy before systematically testing them out on the canon of comic literature. We'll have a free preview up soon but in the meantime, you can find out more information about the book here!
Writing this has got me thinking of one of my favourite book-related quotes, from the inimitable Groucho Marx: “From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it.”
What are your favourite book-related one-liners?? Leave a comment and let us know!
David,
Senior Editor,
Continuum Literary Studies
Disraeli once replied to an author, “Thankyou for sending me your book. I shall lose no time in reading it”.
Mine is another one from Groucho. Asked if he planned to read Lolita, he replied, “I’m going to wait 6 years ’til she’s 18”.