Asifa Hussain and William Miller
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199280711
- eISBN:
- 9780191604102
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199280711.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, UK Politics
Majority Scots have less contact, friendship, and knowledge of the minorities than the minorities have of the majority. Minority perceptions of the majority are broadly accurate. In particular, they ...
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Majority Scots have less contact, friendship, and knowledge of the minorities than the minorities have of the majority. Minority perceptions of the majority are broadly accurate. In particular, they are aware that the majority doubts the loyalty of minorities (English and Muslim) to Scotland. The frequent exposure to ethnic jokes and intentional insults have a dramatic impact on minorities’ perceptions, even though the victims try hard to believe that their harassers are exceptional rather than typical. These personal experiences have significantly more impact on English immigrants’ perceptions of the majority’s Anglophobia than on Muslims’ perceptions of the majority’s Islamophobia. English immigrants suffered less harassment but coped worse and reacted more indignantly. Signals from the new Scottish Parliament to minorities were critically important in determining minorities’ perceptions of the majority. The Parliament’s inclusive, multicultural publicity campaigns may have greater impact on the minorities’ perceptions than on the majority’s actual prejudices.Less
Majority Scots have less contact, friendship, and knowledge of the minorities than the minorities have of the majority. Minority perceptions of the majority are broadly accurate. In particular, they are aware that the majority doubts the loyalty of minorities (English and Muslim) to Scotland. The frequent exposure to ethnic jokes and intentional insults have a dramatic impact on minorities’ perceptions, even though the victims try hard to believe that their harassers are exceptional rather than typical. These personal experiences have significantly more impact on English immigrants’ perceptions of the majority’s Anglophobia than on Muslims’ perceptions of the majority’s Islamophobia. English immigrants suffered less harassment but coped worse and reacted more indignantly. Signals from the new Scottish Parliament to minorities were critically important in determining minorities’ perceptions of the majority. The Parliament’s inclusive, multicultural publicity campaigns may have greater impact on the minorities’ perceptions than on the majority’s actual prejudices.
Asifa Hussain and William Miller
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199280711
- eISBN:
- 9780191604102
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199280711.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, UK Politics
Two-thirds of Pakistanis and two-fifths of English report being subjected to ‘intentional insults’, although most claim that their abusers were not really ‘typical Scots’. Integration may reduce the ...
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Two-thirds of Pakistanis and two-fifths of English report being subjected to ‘intentional insults’, although most claim that their abusers were not really ‘typical Scots’. Integration may reduce the harassment of English immigrants, but the more Pakistanis integrate, the more they suffered. Those who were born in Scotland, spoke English at home, or worked outside the home or the family business experienced more harassment and abuse. For ethnic Pakistanis, more contact meant more harassment, and perhaps greater sensitivity to it. General perceptions of conflict between minorities and majority of Scots were strongly linked to personal experience, with frequency having more impact than severity; even irritating ethnic jokes created a perception of conflict if they were frequent. The impact of personal experience on general perceptions of conflict with majority Scots was as strong amongst English immigrants as they were amongst ethnic Pakistanis.Less
Two-thirds of Pakistanis and two-fifths of English report being subjected to ‘intentional insults’, although most claim that their abusers were not really ‘typical Scots’. Integration may reduce the harassment of English immigrants, but the more Pakistanis integrate, the more they suffered. Those who were born in Scotland, spoke English at home, or worked outside the home or the family business experienced more harassment and abuse. For ethnic Pakistanis, more contact meant more harassment, and perhaps greater sensitivity to it. General perceptions of conflict between minorities and majority of Scots were strongly linked to personal experience, with frequency having more impact than severity; even irritating ethnic jokes created a perception of conflict if they were frequent. The impact of personal experience on general perceptions of conflict with majority Scots was as strong amongst English immigrants as they were amongst ethnic Pakistanis.
Daniel Peretti
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781496814586
- eISBN:
- 9781496814623
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496814586.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Culture
Many artists draw upon folklore to craft films, music, literature, and other elements of popular culture. This book examines how the opposite phenomenon occurs: the use of popular culture in the ...
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Many artists draw upon folklore to craft films, music, literature, and other elements of popular culture. This book examines how the opposite phenomenon occurs: the use of popular culture in the expressive culture called folklore. Superman is an ideal focus for such as study because of his ubiquity. Though Superman is under the control of a corporation, fans nonetheless have developed a sense of ownership of him, often because of an affinity they feel toward him. Early chapters of this book explore the varieties of this affinity as experienced by individuals and as understood through interviews. Later chapters delve into specific events, such as the Superman Celebration in Illinois, and other modes of expression such as humor, personal narrative, and myth. Superman in Myth and Folklore explores the idea that a fictional character can be foundationally important in morality through fieldwork and interviews. In other words, fans use Superman to think through complex issues in their personal lives, and this book explores how. Despite the focus on fieldwork, there is some attention to the extant literature on Superman, ranging from educational works on science to psychology and history. There is also attention to the mythical aspects of Superman, with analyses of the character through several theories such as structuralism and functionalism. By examining jokes, festival, costuming, and narrative, this book explores the impact a fictional character can have.Less
Many artists draw upon folklore to craft films, music, literature, and other elements of popular culture. This book examines how the opposite phenomenon occurs: the use of popular culture in the expressive culture called folklore. Superman is an ideal focus for such as study because of his ubiquity. Though Superman is under the control of a corporation, fans nonetheless have developed a sense of ownership of him, often because of an affinity they feel toward him. Early chapters of this book explore the varieties of this affinity as experienced by individuals and as understood through interviews. Later chapters delve into specific events, such as the Superman Celebration in Illinois, and other modes of expression such as humor, personal narrative, and myth. Superman in Myth and Folklore explores the idea that a fictional character can be foundationally important in morality through fieldwork and interviews. In other words, fans use Superman to think through complex issues in their personal lives, and this book explores how. Despite the focus on fieldwork, there is some attention to the extant literature on Superman, ranging from educational works on science to psychology and history. There is also attention to the mythical aspects of Superman, with analyses of the character through several theories such as structuralism and functionalism. By examining jokes, festival, costuming, and narrative, this book explores the impact a fictional character can have.
Christopher Prendergast
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691155203
- eISBN:
- 9781400846313
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691155203.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter examines “Proustian jokes” of the kind that gives pause for thought rather than to inflict a wound. Most of the mad beliefs in À la recherche du temps perdu are droll as well as crazy, ...
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This chapter examines “Proustian jokes” of the kind that gives pause for thought rather than to inflict a wound. Most of the mad beliefs in À la recherche du temps perdu are droll as well as crazy, and have their place in what is often and rightly said of the novel, that, among so many other things, it is also a great comic novel. The chapter considers examples of Proustian jokes that it suggests also reveal some of the key sources and terms of Marcel Proust's own aesthetic: the idioms of philosophical Idealism, the practice of naming one thing as another, the transposition of one order of sensation to another, and the drama of the unfinished or unfinishable sentence. It argues that the target of self-directed humor in the Recherche is not just an empirical self but the category of Self and the risk-laden practices of self-talk.Less
This chapter examines “Proustian jokes” of the kind that gives pause for thought rather than to inflict a wound. Most of the mad beliefs in À la recherche du temps perdu are droll as well as crazy, and have their place in what is often and rightly said of the novel, that, among so many other things, it is also a great comic novel. The chapter considers examples of Proustian jokes that it suggests also reveal some of the key sources and terms of Marcel Proust's own aesthetic: the idioms of philosophical Idealism, the practice of naming one thing as another, the transposition of one order of sensation to another, and the drama of the unfinished or unfinishable sentence. It argues that the target of self-directed humor in the Recherche is not just an empirical self but the category of Self and the risk-laden practices of self-talk.
Jerome Neu
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195314311
- eISBN:
- 9780199871780
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195314311.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language
The schoolyard wisdom about “sticks and stones” does not take one very far: insults do not take the form only of words, in truth even words have effects, and in the end the popular as well as the ...
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The schoolyard wisdom about “sticks and stones” does not take one very far: insults do not take the form only of words, in truth even words have effects, and in the end the popular as well as the standard legal distinctions between speech and conduct are at least as problematic as they are helpful. To think clearly about how much we should put up with those who would put us down, it is necessary to explore the nature and place of insult in our lives. What kind of injury is an insult? Is its infliction determined by the insulter or the insulted? What does it reveal of the character of each and of the character of society and its conventions? What is its role in social and legal life (from play to jokes to ritual to war and from blasphemy to defamation to hate speech)? Philosophical, anthropological, psychoanalytic, and legal approaches to the questions are emphasized. Whether intentional or unintentional, the assertions and assumptions of dominance in insults make them a serious and essential form of power play. Is to understand all to forgive all?Less
The schoolyard wisdom about “sticks and stones” does not take one very far: insults do not take the form only of words, in truth even words have effects, and in the end the popular as well as the standard legal distinctions between speech and conduct are at least as problematic as they are helpful. To think clearly about how much we should put up with those who would put us down, it is necessary to explore the nature and place of insult in our lives. What kind of injury is an insult? Is its infliction determined by the insulter or the insulted? What does it reveal of the character of each and of the character of society and its conventions? What is its role in social and legal life (from play to jokes to ritual to war and from blasphemy to defamation to hate speech)? Philosophical, anthropological, psychoanalytic, and legal approaches to the questions are emphasized. Whether intentional or unintentional, the assertions and assumptions of dominance in insults make them a serious and essential form of power play. Is to understand all to forgive all?
WALTER REDFERN
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199237579
- eISBN:
- 9780191696749
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199237579.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This chapter discusses Cèline's Mort à crèdit and Vallès's L'Enfant. It argues that exaggeration, traditionally associated with falsity, can in fact be redeployed so as to serve the cause of truth. ...
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This chapter discusses Cèline's Mort à crèdit and Vallès's L'Enfant. It argues that exaggeration, traditionally associated with falsity, can in fact be redeployed so as to serve the cause of truth. But extravagance also implies wastefulness. Exaggeration can also reduce the value of something, belittle it. Cèline remains today an outsize bone of contention in French culture, because of his alleged, and real, collaboration during the Second World War. Cèline not only makes the big bigger, he makes the small loom larger. For Jules Vallès, the blague was an existential strategy, an artifice of self-preservation. Vallès's L'Enfant is no joke, and richly, complexly funny. Exaggeration can aggrandize or minimize. It can generate comedy. Laughter can reinforce rebelliousness. To exaggerate is to set free. Hyperbole is a serious joke. Humour needs targets, as anti-authority political jokes. Ethnic jokes involve power relationships, and are thus political.Less
This chapter discusses Cèline's Mort à crèdit and Vallès's L'Enfant. It argues that exaggeration, traditionally associated with falsity, can in fact be redeployed so as to serve the cause of truth. But extravagance also implies wastefulness. Exaggeration can also reduce the value of something, belittle it. Cèline remains today an outsize bone of contention in French culture, because of his alleged, and real, collaboration during the Second World War. Cèline not only makes the big bigger, he makes the small loom larger. For Jules Vallès, the blague was an existential strategy, an artifice of self-preservation. Vallès's L'Enfant is no joke, and richly, complexly funny. Exaggeration can aggrandize or minimize. It can generate comedy. Laughter can reinforce rebelliousness. To exaggerate is to set free. Hyperbole is a serious joke. Humour needs targets, as anti-authority political jokes. Ethnic jokes involve power relationships, and are thus political.
Francesca Mencacci
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199582570
- eISBN:
- 9780191595271
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199582570.003.0010
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
In the Roman family the relationship between slave children and free adults could be quite ambiguous, mixing affection and exploitive attitudes. One of the reasons why the domini of the imperial era ...
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In the Roman family the relationship between slave children and free adults could be quite ambiguous, mixing affection and exploitive attitudes. One of the reasons why the domini of the imperial era were so fond of their slave children was their special skills in the field of verbal impudence and scurrilous jesting. Free speech and a certain kind of humour seem to have been encouraged in these children for the personal entertainment of the dominus and of his guests. Verbal licentia was not permitted to the free children of the domus; elite children had to achieve complete mastery over language as a mark of social distinction. By exploring the different shaping of speech habits of freeborn and slave children and its social consequences, the chapter aims to focus on the different ways the upper-class Romans understood childhood and at the same time to define more precisely the nature of the relationship between the domini and their pet slaves.Less
In the Roman family the relationship between slave children and free adults could be quite ambiguous, mixing affection and exploitive attitudes. One of the reasons why the domini of the imperial era were so fond of their slave children was their special skills in the field of verbal impudence and scurrilous jesting. Free speech and a certain kind of humour seem to have been encouraged in these children for the personal entertainment of the dominus and of his guests. Verbal licentia was not permitted to the free children of the domus; elite children had to achieve complete mastery over language as a mark of social distinction. By exploring the different shaping of speech habits of freeborn and slave children and its social consequences, the chapter aims to focus on the different ways the upper-class Romans understood childhood and at the same time to define more precisely the nature of the relationship between the domini and their pet slaves.
John Wigger
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195387803
- eISBN:
- 9780199866410
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195387803.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
As conflict between the colonies and Great Britain escalated, Asbury increasingly seemed out of place next to Wesley’s other preachers in America. While they continued to see American Methodism as ...
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As conflict between the colonies and Great Britain escalated, Asbury increasingly seemed out of place next to Wesley’s other preachers in America. While they continued to see American Methodism as strictly an extension of Wesley’s European connection, Asbury accepted that America was culturally different from England, with its own set of needs. As Asbury recruited young American preachers like Philip Gatch and William Watters, Thomas Rankin grew increasing suspicious of Asbury’s connection to these Americans. In September 1773 Asbury contracted malaria while in Maryland. Still, he felt most at home in the South, where a sustained revival took hold in Virginia and North Carolina, 1773–1776, aided in part by the Anglican priest Devereux Jarratt. While George Shadford embraced the revival along with Asbury, Rankin grew suspicious of its emotionalism. At a meeting of the preachers Asbury silenced Rankin by making him the object of a joke about a mouse.Less
As conflict between the colonies and Great Britain escalated, Asbury increasingly seemed out of place next to Wesley’s other preachers in America. While they continued to see American Methodism as strictly an extension of Wesley’s European connection, Asbury accepted that America was culturally different from England, with its own set of needs. As Asbury recruited young American preachers like Philip Gatch and William Watters, Thomas Rankin grew increasing suspicious of Asbury’s connection to these Americans. In September 1773 Asbury contracted malaria while in Maryland. Still, he felt most at home in the South, where a sustained revival took hold in Virginia and North Carolina, 1773–1776, aided in part by the Anglican priest Devereux Jarratt. While George Shadford embraced the revival along with Asbury, Rankin grew suspicious of its emotionalism. At a meeting of the preachers Asbury silenced Rankin by making him the object of a joke about a mouse.
Adrian Millar
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719066962
- eISBN:
- 9781781701515
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719066962.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
Conducting an analysis of some of the most candid interview materials ever gathered from former Irish Republican Army (IRA) members and loyalists in Northern Ireland, this book demonstrates through a ...
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Conducting an analysis of some of the most candid interview materials ever gathered from former Irish Republican Army (IRA) members and loyalists in Northern Ireland, this book demonstrates through a psychoanalysis of slips of the tongue, jokes, rationalisations and contradictions that it is the unconscious dynamics of the conflict — that is, the pleasure to be found in suffering, failure, domination, submission and ignorance, and in rivalry over jouissance — that lead to the reproduction of polarisation between the Catholic and Protestant communities. As a result, it contends that traditional approaches to conflict resolution which overlook the unconscious are doomed and argues that a Lacanian psychoanalytic understanding of socio-ideological fantasy has great potential for informing the way we understand and study all inter-religious and ethnic conflicts and, as such, deserves to be further developed in conflict-management processes. Whether readers find themselves agreeing with the arguments in the book or not, they are sure to find it a change from both traditional approaches to conflict resolution and the existing mainly conservative analyses of the Northern Ireland conflict.Less
Conducting an analysis of some of the most candid interview materials ever gathered from former Irish Republican Army (IRA) members and loyalists in Northern Ireland, this book demonstrates through a psychoanalysis of slips of the tongue, jokes, rationalisations and contradictions that it is the unconscious dynamics of the conflict — that is, the pleasure to be found in suffering, failure, domination, submission and ignorance, and in rivalry over jouissance — that lead to the reproduction of polarisation between the Catholic and Protestant communities. As a result, it contends that traditional approaches to conflict resolution which overlook the unconscious are doomed and argues that a Lacanian psychoanalytic understanding of socio-ideological fantasy has great potential for informing the way we understand and study all inter-religious and ethnic conflicts and, as such, deserves to be further developed in conflict-management processes. Whether readers find themselves agreeing with the arguments in the book or not, they are sure to find it a change from both traditional approaches to conflict resolution and the existing mainly conservative analyses of the Northern Ireland conflict.
Howard J. Curzer
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199693726
- eISBN:
- 9780191738890
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199693726.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Ancient Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
Aristotle’s decision to list wit as a virtue does not reflect an outmoded, aristocratic view that morally good people have panache. What makes someone a witty person is not a good sense of humor, but ...
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Aristotle’s decision to list wit as a virtue does not reflect an outmoded, aristocratic view that morally good people have panache. What makes someone a witty person is not a good sense of humor, but rather it is an appropriate sensitivity to the danger of wounding others through humor. Witty people are not particularly good at specifying which jokes are funny; instead they are good at specify which jokes are hateful in which situations. They avoid telling and tolerating humorous, hurtful put-downs. The passion of wit is not joke-appreciation, but rather it is friendly feeling. Wit’s vices are not (a) boring and (b) clownish dispositions. Instead, they are dispositions (a) to being overly sensitive to the feeling of others with respect to humor, and (b) to being correspondingly insensitive.Less
Aristotle’s decision to list wit as a virtue does not reflect an outmoded, aristocratic view that morally good people have panache. What makes someone a witty person is not a good sense of humor, but rather it is an appropriate sensitivity to the danger of wounding others through humor. Witty people are not particularly good at specifying which jokes are funny; instead they are good at specify which jokes are hateful in which situations. They avoid telling and tolerating humorous, hurtful put-downs. The passion of wit is not joke-appreciation, but rather it is friendly feeling. Wit’s vices are not (a) boring and (b) clownish dispositions. Instead, they are dispositions (a) to being overly sensitive to the feeling of others with respect to humor, and (b) to being correspondingly insensitive.
Alan H. Sommerstein
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199554195
- eISBN:
- 9780191720604
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199554195.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter is in effect a lexicon of euphemistic expressions in Aristophanes. Under six headings (all-purpose expressions; death; age, appearance and disabilities; vices and crimes; politics; ...
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This chapter is in effect a lexicon of euphemistic expressions in Aristophanes. Under six headings (all-purpose expressions; death; age, appearance and disabilities; vices and crimes; politics; and—outnumbering all the others combined—sex and scatology), it catalogues and briefly discusses over 140 words and phrases used for euphemistic purposes in the eleven comedies. Their distribution across the corpus is also examined: they are more frequent in the later plays, and women speakers use them proportionately more than twice as often as men; they often cluster in particular scenes, or in the speeches of particular characters, and they provide ample material for jokes based on ambiguity.Less
This chapter is in effect a lexicon of euphemistic expressions in Aristophanes. Under six headings (all-purpose expressions; death; age, appearance and disabilities; vices and crimes; politics; and—outnumbering all the others combined—sex and scatology), it catalogues and briefly discusses over 140 words and phrases used for euphemistic purposes in the eleven comedies. Their distribution across the corpus is also examined: they are more frequent in the later plays, and women speakers use them proportionately more than twice as often as men; they often cluster in particular scenes, or in the speeches of particular characters, and they provide ample material for jokes based on ambiguity.
I. A. Ruffell
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199587216
- eISBN:
- 9780191731297
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199587216.003.0003
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter argues that the joke is the device through which Old Comedy needs to be approached. It discusses the place of humour in Aristophanic interpretation and relates analysis of ...
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This chapter argues that the joke is the device through which Old Comedy needs to be approached. It discusses the place of humour in Aristophanic interpretation and relates analysis of the joke to more literary analyses of Aristophanes through privileged tropes and figures, particularly metaphor. On theoretical and practical grounds (via a study of oracles in Knights), the joke is presented as the superset of such tropical and figural humour. Building on this analysis and engaging with humour theory (Freud, Raskin, Palmer), cognitive linguistics (especially Lakoff) and semiotics (Eco), a theory of the joke is elaborated which is the basis for future chapters.Less
This chapter argues that the joke is the device through which Old Comedy needs to be approached. It discusses the place of humour in Aristophanic interpretation and relates analysis of the joke to more literary analyses of Aristophanes through privileged tropes and figures, particularly metaphor. On theoretical and practical grounds (via a study of oracles in Knights), the joke is presented as the superset of such tropical and figural humour. Building on this analysis and engaging with humour theory (Freud, Raskin, Palmer), cognitive linguistics (especially Lakoff) and semiotics (Eco), a theory of the joke is elaborated which is the basis for future chapters.
I. A. Ruffell
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199587216
- eISBN:
- 9780191731297
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199587216.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter examines the relationship of jokes to plot and argues that Old Comedy is an example of a style of comedy where jokes are not additional to plot but are the fundamental ...
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This chapter examines the relationship of jokes to plot and argues that Old Comedy is an example of a style of comedy where jokes are not additional to plot but are the fundamental building blocks of plot, through their elaboration into comic routines. Comic plots of this type are characterised by the interplay of comic routines with each other, motivated by theme and above all by the running joke. Such a plot is episodic, in Aristotelian terms, but the chapter seeks to recuperate episodic as a positive and foundational concept. A study of central scenes in Aristophanes' Wasps exemplifies this type of plot formation.Less
This chapter examines the relationship of jokes to plot and argues that Old Comedy is an example of a style of comedy where jokes are not additional to plot but are the fundamental building blocks of plot, through their elaboration into comic routines. Comic plots of this type are characterised by the interplay of comic routines with each other, motivated by theme and above all by the running joke. Such a plot is episodic, in Aristotelian terms, but the chapter seeks to recuperate episodic as a positive and foundational concept. A study of central scenes in Aristophanes' Wasps exemplifies this type of plot formation.
Paul Turner
- Published in print:
- 1990
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198122395
- eISBN:
- 9780191671401
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198122395.003.0021
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
The Victorian urge to be funny had three happy results for literature. It produced some excellent comic verse, some wonderfully accurate parodies, and a whole new subgenre, Nonsense. Oscar Wilde was ...
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The Victorian urge to be funny had three happy results for literature. It produced some excellent comic verse, some wonderfully accurate parodies, and a whole new subgenre, Nonsense. Oscar Wilde was not the first Victorian to question the importance of being earnest. The Evangelicals, and the Agnostics stimulated the mass-production of light literature. However there was nothing secret about it. With the birth of Punch in 1841 the making of jokes became a national industry, and it claimed in its first number to be simply a ‘Guffawgraph’. Its motto, taken from Lord Byron’s Don Juan, was: ‘laugh at all things’. Its philosophy, far from Hamlet’s notion of ‘looking before and after’, was to make ‘the most of the present, regardless of the past or future’, and countless humorists wrote in the same spirit. Their quest for ‘the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind’ now seems faintly frenetic.Less
The Victorian urge to be funny had three happy results for literature. It produced some excellent comic verse, some wonderfully accurate parodies, and a whole new subgenre, Nonsense. Oscar Wilde was not the first Victorian to question the importance of being earnest. The Evangelicals, and the Agnostics stimulated the mass-production of light literature. However there was nothing secret about it. With the birth of Punch in 1841 the making of jokes became a national industry, and it claimed in its first number to be simply a ‘Guffawgraph’. Its motto, taken from Lord Byron’s Don Juan, was: ‘laugh at all things’. Its philosophy, far from Hamlet’s notion of ‘looking before and after’, was to make ‘the most of the present, regardless of the past or future’, and countless humorists wrote in the same spirit. Their quest for ‘the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind’ now seems faintly frenetic.
WALTER REDFERN
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199237579
- eISBN:
- 9780191696749
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199237579.003.0013
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
Not all of us grasp all jokes. There are pointed, barbed jokes, and toothless ones. There are pure and simple-minded jokes, and jokes with ulterior motives. It is all about the question of taste. ...
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Not all of us grasp all jokes. There are pointed, barbed jokes, and toothless ones. There are pure and simple-minded jokes, and jokes with ulterior motives. It is all about the question of taste. This chapter is superficially ‘a doctrine of scattered occasions’. It looks at failed humour in the texts of Beckett. With its abstruse references – ‘the socio-cultural equivalent of insider trading’ – some of Beckett's humour is more godawfully pedantic than any that professional pedants persist in perpetrating. A variety of bad jokes is the dirty joke, for the senses of ‘not worth making’ and ‘not worthy of being made’ tend to run together. Scientists researched the therapeutic effects of humour. Contrary to Freud's grateful response to jokes arising in therapy, Adler sounds tetchy as he said: ‘Actually a large number of nervous symptoms seem like a poor joke’.Less
Not all of us grasp all jokes. There are pointed, barbed jokes, and toothless ones. There are pure and simple-minded jokes, and jokes with ulterior motives. It is all about the question of taste. This chapter is superficially ‘a doctrine of scattered occasions’. It looks at failed humour in the texts of Beckett. With its abstruse references – ‘the socio-cultural equivalent of insider trading’ – some of Beckett's humour is more godawfully pedantic than any that professional pedants persist in perpetrating. A variety of bad jokes is the dirty joke, for the senses of ‘not worth making’ and ‘not worthy of being made’ tend to run together. Scientists researched the therapeutic effects of humour. Contrary to Freud's grateful response to jokes arising in therapy, Adler sounds tetchy as he said: ‘Actually a large number of nervous symptoms seem like a poor joke’.
WALTER REDFERN
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199237579
- eISBN:
- 9780191696749
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199237579.003.0016
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
Humour is language with attitude. It proliferates and refuses bounds. This chapter sums up humour in French literature. Sartre and Tournier twist and turn ideas and words. Cèline whips lexis and ...
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Humour is language with attitude. It proliferates and refuses bounds. This chapter sums up humour in French literature. Sartre and Tournier twist and turn ideas and words. Cèline whips lexis and syntax into paroxysms. Diderot philosophizes ludically. Flaubert suffers agonies over language. Sade was forcibly constrained for much of his life to erect a verbal substitute universe, as, in a more wilful way, was Brisset. Huysmans kept the unloved world at bay with sumptuous words. Rousseau fails to see the joke, and Beckett enjoys telling bad ones. Vallès keeps his sunny side up. Flaubert chimes in with the general fact of life that we all have difficulty deciding whether certain oral or graphic statements are meant to be funny or not.Less
Humour is language with attitude. It proliferates and refuses bounds. This chapter sums up humour in French literature. Sartre and Tournier twist and turn ideas and words. Cèline whips lexis and syntax into paroxysms. Diderot philosophizes ludically. Flaubert suffers agonies over language. Sade was forcibly constrained for much of his life to erect a verbal substitute universe, as, in a more wilful way, was Brisset. Huysmans kept the unloved world at bay with sumptuous words. Rousseau fails to see the joke, and Beckett enjoys telling bad ones. Vallès keeps his sunny side up. Flaubert chimes in with the general fact of life that we all have difficulty deciding whether certain oral or graphic statements are meant to be funny or not.
Yiannis Gabriel
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198290957
- eISBN:
- 9780191684845
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198290957.003.0005
- Subject:
- Business and Management, Organization Studies
This chapter locates storytelling within the cultural fabric of different organizations and examines what stories can tell researchers about these organizations and their cultures. The chapter offers ...
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This chapter locates storytelling within the cultural fabric of different organizations and examines what stories can tell researchers about these organizations and their cultures. The chapter offers further illustrations of interpretation, elaborating the relationship between the fantasy life of individuals and groups and an organization's cultural artefacts, such as stories, jokes, and symbols. The chapter concludes with a detailed discussion of one particular story, encountered in a navy training camp. This story is shown to be the point of convergence for a number of fantasies held by organizational participants. This chapter argues that certain fantasies, instead of integrating individuals and groups into the organization, enable participants to distance themselves from it by presenting the organization as an object of derision and disparagement. Organizational culture and its artefacts equip the individual with protective armour against the type of misfortune and suffering that characterize contemporary organizations. Organizational culture, like all culture, has a consolatory function, compensating for the frustrations of life in organizations.Less
This chapter locates storytelling within the cultural fabric of different organizations and examines what stories can tell researchers about these organizations and their cultures. The chapter offers further illustrations of interpretation, elaborating the relationship between the fantasy life of individuals and groups and an organization's cultural artefacts, such as stories, jokes, and symbols. The chapter concludes with a detailed discussion of one particular story, encountered in a navy training camp. This story is shown to be the point of convergence for a number of fantasies held by organizational participants. This chapter argues that certain fantasies, instead of integrating individuals and groups into the organization, enable participants to distance themselves from it by presenting the organization as an object of derision and disparagement. Organizational culture and its artefacts equip the individual with protective armour against the type of misfortune and suffering that characterize contemporary organizations. Organizational culture, like all culture, has a consolatory function, compensating for the frustrations of life in organizations.
Isabelle Torrance
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199657834
- eISBN:
- 9780191745393
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199657834.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The Conclusion draws together the main arguments of the book through reference to an Aristophanic joke about Euripidean tone. The suggestion that Euripides implicitly invites the audience to ...
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The Conclusion draws together the main arguments of the book through reference to an Aristophanic joke about Euripidean tone. The suggestion that Euripides implicitly invites the audience to interpret his metapoetic games is framed within the context of the Athenian love of riddles and the dramatists’ hopes for intelligent spectators.Less
The Conclusion draws together the main arguments of the book through reference to an Aristophanic joke about Euripidean tone. The suggestion that Euripides implicitly invites the audience to interpret his metapoetic games is framed within the context of the Athenian love of riddles and the dramatists’ hopes for intelligent spectators.
A. E. Denham
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198240105
- eISBN:
- 9780191680076
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198240105.003.0009
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Language, Moral Philosophy
Modern ‘intuitionist’ theories of metaphor have echoed Plato's views, arguing for a clear distinction between the cognitive function of conventional, literal language and the special symbolic and ...
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Modern ‘intuitionist’ theories of metaphor have echoed Plato's views, arguing for a clear distinction between the cognitive function of conventional, literal language and the special symbolic and expressive function of aesthetic language. Intuitionism (as that term is now applied to theories of metaphor) developed in reaction against positivist efforts to reduce the meaningful content of metaphor to its literal paraphrase. On the positivist view, whatever cannot be paraphrased in literal terms is, from the standpoint of meaning, strictly eliminable. In his article ‘What Metaphors Mean’, Donald Davidson argues that metaphorical sentences have no meaning at all (other than their literal sentence meaning). This chapter discusses metaphor and cognition, the analogy between metaphors and jokes, cognitive theories of metaphor, and the interaction theory of metaphor.Less
Modern ‘intuitionist’ theories of metaphor have echoed Plato's views, arguing for a clear distinction between the cognitive function of conventional, literal language and the special symbolic and expressive function of aesthetic language. Intuitionism (as that term is now applied to theories of metaphor) developed in reaction against positivist efforts to reduce the meaningful content of metaphor to its literal paraphrase. On the positivist view, whatever cannot be paraphrased in literal terms is, from the standpoint of meaning, strictly eliminable. In his article ‘What Metaphors Mean’, Donald Davidson argues that metaphorical sentences have no meaning at all (other than their literal sentence meaning). This chapter discusses metaphor and cognition, the analogy between metaphors and jokes, cognitive theories of metaphor, and the interaction theory of metaphor.
John Paley
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- November 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199546695
- eISBN:
- 9780191730214
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199546695.003.0002
- Subject:
- Palliative Care, Palliative Medicine Research, Patient Care and End-of-Life Decision Making
This chapter discusses narrative machinery, which is used in stories to make them work. The discussion looks at how this narrative machinery is configured, why it is deployed, and what it is intended ...
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This chapter discusses narrative machinery, which is used in stories to make them work. The discussion looks at how this narrative machinery is configured, why it is deployed, and what it is intended to produce. The chapter also discusses the difference between narratives and stories, introduces the idea of ‘narrativity’, and presents jokes and illness narratives.Less
This chapter discusses narrative machinery, which is used in stories to make them work. The discussion looks at how this narrative machinery is configured, why it is deployed, and what it is intended to produce. The chapter also discusses the difference between narratives and stories, introduces the idea of ‘narrativity’, and presents jokes and illness narratives.
