Recent interest in environmental crises has inspired literary critics to consider how the history of ideas shapes our current ecological debates. Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream sets the stage for assessing how Renaissance attitudes towards nature have influenced current ideologies. While the play appears to be a fantasy, it reveals a relationship with nature, both physically and figuratively. The play's excursion into the woods shows an attempt to heal human relationships. Shakespeare's use of the imagery of nature argues in favor of the green world, for it is a world inhabited by shadows and shamen -- or, as Shakespeare calls them, fairies. A key element for ecocritics concerns the apparent silence of nature in literature and other cultural forms. Christopher Manes' article, "Nature and Silence," alerts readers to nature's lack of voice as a symptom of humanism, especially of theories such as the Great Chain of Being, which place nature in a subordinate role to humans, giving homo sapiens the dubious power to speak for nature. I wish to present Shakespeare's fairies as the speakers of the forest and of nature's values, according to the Early Modern period. By liberating fairies from demonic associations, Shakespeare's forest appears to us as inviting and healing. Furthermore, I argue that the pastoral tradition, which informs the Early Modern attitude towards nature, is superceded by picaresque and shamanic figures within the text. These elements allow for a subversive understanding of nature and our relationship to it. If humans adapted to their environment by developing consciousness, what has been the effect of that consciousness on their environment? Shakespeare's forest and fairies help to confront this issue because they restore human awareness to a healthy state of consciousness. By showing fairies in this light, Shakespeare provocatively proposes that humans "mend" their relationship to their surroundings as well as their own human relationships.

Belly Laughs: Body Humor in Contemporary American Literature and Film Scholars are more than happy to laugh at but seem somewhat reluctant to discuss body humor, which is perhaps the most neglected form of comedy in recent criticism. In this dissertation, I examine the ways in which contemporary American writers and filmmakers use body humor in their works, not only in moments of so-called "comic relief" but also as a valid way of exploring many of the same issues that postmodern artists typically interrogate in their more somber moments. The writers discussed in this project-Philip Roth, Thomas Pynchon, Charles Johnson, and Woody Allen-were chosen for the divergent ways in which they present the body's comic predicament in psychological, metaphysical, and historical situations. The introduction explains the diverse traditions that these artists draw upon and considers how various theoretical approaches can affect our understanding of body humor. The first chapter examines Jewish-American novelist Philip Roth's use of absurd and grotesque body imagery as manifestations of his characters' moral dilemmas. The second chapter looks at how slapstick comedy informs a worldview dominated by paranioa and chaos in Thomas Pynchon's novels. Chapter Three looks at Woody Allen's early films, in which he parodies and revises the slapstick cinematic tradition of artists like Charlie Chaplin and The Marx Brothers. Chapter Four considers African-American writer and cartoonist Charles Johnson's depiction of the ways in which the body's desires and pitfalls complicate the quest for spiritual enlightenment.

This dissertation examines religion’s satirical portrayal in The Simpsons. Building upon a sociological theory of humour developed from Peter Berger’s sociological theories of knowledge, religion, and humour, it assesses how The Simpsons criticizes America’s major religious traditions and their social roles. Arguing that the program presents a spectrum of acceptable religious practice, this dissertation demonstrates how The Simpsons constructs its arguments by selectively interpreting each tradition through its most recognizable characteristics and the common sentiments through which those characteristics are interpreted. These “ignorant familiarities” are used as a basis for understanding what Americans presumably know about religion, what is deemed acceptable “religious behaviour” in the public sphere, and what the consequences are for those religions that The Simpsons caricatures.

The purpose of my study was to determine whether there are any differences between the language that men use and the one that women use in a context that has not yet been studied. With the results of previous studies from other areas in mind I tried to ascertain if the stereotypes that exist about language and gender may also be transmitted to the comedy stage. I compared two stand-up comedians with opposite sex in a clip from a Swedish television show. The comparison was based on their body language, the use of nouns and verbs and on the length of their words. I used a combination of a qualitative and a quantitative method. In relation to previous studies the only aspect that corresponded with the result was the fact that women use more body language that men. As a final conclusion, there may be reason to believe that Stand-up Comedy, which started out as a male art form, has resulted in a style typical of the genre which later also was adopted by the female comedians.

Murdoch&rsquo / s fiction has been influenced by dramatic elements, particularly comic elements. This influence has been revealed as parody. Murdoch parodies the comic character types of the eiron, alazon, buffoon and agroikos by exaggerating and mixing their functions and themes of love, separated lovers and metamorphosis in her novels, The Nice and the Good, The Black Prince, and The Sea, The Sea. In addition, she makes parodic uses of Shakespearean plays, As You Like It and Love&#039 / s Labour&#039 / s Lost, Hamlet, and The Tempest, in her novels in question. Her use of parody as a weapon against the genre of romantic comedy, its character types and main themes is the result of her philosophical view of drama and the dramatic. She argues that comedy and tragedy deal with appearance whereas drama and the dramatic ought to involve reality. In her novels in question, she shows that the dramatic is the conflict of selfish self with itself to reach self-knowledge. Murdochian self- knowledge is the knowledge of what lies beyond self. This kind of knowledge is achieved by unselfing, a process through which a solipsistic self recognizes its solipsism and challenges it by means of love and art.

Univ., Diss.--Bologna, 2004. / Contains bibliography (p. 371-429), bibliographical references, notes and indices (p. 433-446).

Thesis--Bryn Mawr. / Vita. Bibliography: p. [123]-128.

Thesis--Paris IV, 1974. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 801-843).

Thesis--Salzburg. / Summary and vita in German. Includes bibliographical references (p. 220-242).

Thèse complémentaire--Université de Paris. / "Bibliographie": p. [159]-166.