Comedy Matters - by W Demastes (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Comedy Matters traces the long tradition of the expansive comic embrace of cultural difference and diversity that manages to survive even in some of mankind s darkest moments. Demastes argues that comedy has a hard-nosed, pragmatic dimension that can be mobilized against belligerent cultural forces. Drawing from the works of Shakespeare, Stoppard, and a number of other comic masters, Comedy Matters demonstrates how comedy continues to work against cultural regimentation by striving to re-calibrate our decision-making processes and challenging the stultifying rigidity of human economy in the broadest sense of the term.

Review Quotes

"Demastes' study is a thoughtful, cogent, and, ultimately, very useful consideration of comedy, an oft overlooked and certainly under theorized genre of dramatic literature . . ..that it is simultaneously theoretically perceptive and lucid. The study could well be viewed as an example of contemporary theatre scholarship at its best." - Jonathan Chambers, Bowling Green State University

About the Author

WILLIAM B. DEMASTES is Professor of English at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, USA.