Playboys and Killjoys: An Essay on the Theory and Practice of Comedy

by Harry Levin

Harry Levin--one of America's major literary critics--offers a brilliant and original study of the whole world of comedy, concentrating on playwrights through the centuries, from Aristophanes and Plautus in classical times to Bernard Shaw and Bertolt Brecht and their recent successors.
Viewing the comic repertory as a richly varied yet broadly unified whole, Levin provides a synthesis of theories and practice. Isolating two fundamental aspects of comedy--the ludicrous and irreverent "playboy," whom we laugh with, and the ridiculous and forbidding "killjoy," whom we laugh at--he traces the dialectical interplay of these components throughout history and across various cultures and media. While mainly focusing on the plays and the stage, with discussions of such major dramatists as Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Molière, and William Congreve, Levin also includes essays on such related topics as humor, satire, and games.

Genres: Nonfiction

224 pages, Paperback

First published February 19, 1987

About the author

professor of comparative literature

Reviews

[Daniel Gallimore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two easily overlooked aspects of comedy that resound throughout Levin's essay are its moralistic function, namely that though a genre dedicated to having fun it usually exposess individual and social weaknesses, and its tendency to be rushed and crowded, namely that its exponents and audiences are usually in a rush to make and 'get' the joke first lest they be thought the killjoys of Levin's title. Levin's academic style is effortless in its brilliance, his topic far from 'easy'.