- ホーム
- > 洋書
- > 英文書
- > Performing Arts
Full Description
Laughter, Power, and the Unconscious offers paradigm-breaking insights into the psychological and socio-political dimensions of humour and comedy. Based on an innovative audience experiment at Shakespeare's Globe, the authors develop a revolutionary theory of humour as manic defence, challenging Freud's classic formulations while engaging with contemporary humour theories.
The text explores three key domains: first, it establishes and evaluates the theory in comparison to Freud's work in Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious, while positioning it within major humour frameworks; second, it demonstrates the theory's application to Renaissance comedy, examining characters like Malvolio from Twelfth Night alongside stock figures of cuckolds and madmen in both English theatrical traditions and commedia dell'arte; finally, it investigates the theory's broader sociopolitical relevance by analysing war-related humour and racist jokes, while addressing comedy's dual capacity to both challenge and reinforce existing power structures.
This volume will appeal to the scholars and students of psychology, literary theory, and cultural studies interested in the sociopolitical implications of humour.
Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Figures
List of Tables
Chapter 1. Introduction: The Research in Action audience experiment at Shakespeare's Globe
Bridget Escolme and Maria Grazia Turri
Chapter 2. Psychoanalytic rationale of the audience experiment
Maria Grazia Turri
Chapter 3. Researching unconscious responses to early modern characters at Shakespeare's Globe: Results
Maria Grazia Turri
Chapter 4. A new theory of humour as manic defence
Maria Grazia Turri
Chapter 5. Reading theories of humour through the manic defence
Maria Grazia Turri
Chapter 6. The ecology of laughter and humour at the intersection of culture and biology
Maria Grazia Turri
Chapter 7. New insights into the socio-politics of humour
Maria Grazia Turri
Chapter 8. The historicised subject: Psychoanalytic discourse, Cultural Materialism, laughter and power
Bridget Escolme
Chapter 9. Cuckolds and madmen: Comic strength in the notoriously weak
Bridget Escolme
Chapter 10. Laughing with the 'whole pack' of us: Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and comic strength in contemporary production of early modern drama
Bridget Escolme
Chapter 11. Reading comedy as genre through the manic defence
Maria Grazia Turri
Chapter 12. Elements of unconscious emotional processes for a socio-politics of comedy
Maria Grazia Turri
Conclusions. A Dialogue
Index
