Mirth Making: The Rhetorical Discourse on Jesting in Early Modern England.

Holcomb, Chris:

ISBN 10: 1570033978 / ISBN 13: 9781570033971

Editore: Columbia : The University of South Carolina Press, 2001

Riguardo questo articolo

VIII, 230 p. From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - Overall very good and clean. - Mirth Making examines the complex and often contradictory ways in which writers of rhetoric and courtesy manuals during the English Renaissance counseled their readers on the powers and hazards of jesting. Chris Holcomb finds that rhetorical manuals of the early modern period reflect a reverence for Ciceronian humor and offer abundant guidance regarding the handling of wit and laughter. Shedding light on a subject largely neglected by contemporary scholars, Holcombs pathbreaking study demonstrates how such humor-related advice points to and participates in broader cultural phenomenamost notably the eras increase in social and geographic mobility and the contest between authority and subversion. Describing the English Renaissance as a brief but crucial phase in the history of jesting discourse, Holcomb differentiates humor-related counsel of the period from that of classical and medieval sources by its focus on communication between people of different stationspreachers and lay congregations, masters and servants, nobles and tradesmen, courtiers and kingsrather than between equals. Holcomb shows that, in a changing society, handbook writers presented jesting as a socially conservative force, one that preserves distinctions and gradations in jeopardy of being blurred by upward or downward mobility. Such distinctions suggest that with a well-placed jest or quip, an orator might enhance his status and persuasive power or shame and ridicule those beneath him. Holcomb also recognizes, however, that rhetoricians confronted significant challenges as they sought to capture, explain, and teach a strategy both powerful and chaotic, elusive and ubiquitous, highly economical in form and potentially unpredictable in effect. At the same time that the manuals offered recuperative strategies to regulate jesting and preserve social relations, they warned of the dangers associated with a discourse reliant on ambiguity, contradiction, and duplicity. Holcomb concludes that because of the disruptive energies inherent in jesting, rhetoricians of the English Renaissance could not escape the fact that jesting is always a flirtation with disaster. - Chris Holcomb is an assistant professor of English at Texas A&M University in College Station. He holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. from the University of Texas at Austin. He lives in Bryan, Texas. ISBN 9781570033971 Sprache: Englisch Gewicht in Gramm: 558 Original cloth with dust jacket.

Codice articolo 1182757

Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Mirth Making: The Rhetorical Discourse on Jesting in Early Modern England.
• Editore: Columbia : The University of South Carolina Press
• Data di pubblicazione: 2001
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 1570033978
• ISBN 13: 9781570033971
• Rilegatura: Rilegato
• Condizione: Sehr gut
• Condizione della sovraccoperta: sovraccoperta
• Peso: 558 grammi
• Cataloghi dei venditori:
  • England

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

MIRTH MAKING examines the complex and often contradictory ways in which writers of rhetoric and courtesy manuals during the English Renaissance counseled their readers on the powers and hazards of jesting. Shedding light on a subject largely neglected by contemporary scholars, Holcomb's pathbreaking study demonstrates how such humor-related advice points to and participates in broader cultural phenomena - most notably the era's increase in social and geographic mobility and the contest between authority and subversion. Describing the English Renaissance as a brief but crucial phase in the history of jesting discourse, Holcomb differentiates humor-related counsel of the period from that of classical and medieval sources by its focus on communication between people of different stations. Holcomb shows that, in a changing society, handbook writers presented jesting as a socially conservative force and suggests that with a well-placed jest or quip, an orator might enhance his status and persuasive power or shame and ridicule those beneath him. Holcomb also recognizes, however, that rhetoricians confronted significant challenges as they sought to capture, explain, and teach a strategy both powerful and chaotic, elusive and ubiquitous, highly economical in form and potentially unpredictable in effect. Holcomb concludes that because of the disruptive energies inherent in jesting, rhetoricians of the English Renaissance could not escape the fact that jesting is always a flirtation with disaster.

Informazioni sull?autore

Chris Holcomb is an assistant professor of English at Texas A&M University in College Station.