Readings in British Literature, chiefly [but not exclusively] from the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. Studies how modes of verbal and visual humor can inform ideologies, construct social identities, mock deviants and encourage deviance, tell the truth and expell the truth-teller, topple monarchs and enforce social order.
Medieval humor and humours!
Renaissance wit!
18th century satire!
Romantic irony!
Victorian parody!
Silly walks!
Fart jokes!
Performance art!
and all the names of your former lovers embroidered on the inside of a pup-tent
Geoffrey Chaucer
William Shakespeare
Jonathan Swift
William Hogarth
William Blake
Jane Austen
Robert Browning
George Bernard Shaw
Oscar Wilde
Aubrey Beardsley
Samuel Beckett
W. H. Auden
Barbara Pym
Phillip Larkin
Tom Stoppard
Sue Townsen
Monty Python
Jeanette Winterson
Tracy Emin
Bansky
