1. Humor

2. Humor
In literature, the quality that makes a character, dialogue, or situation amusing, funny, or comic. It emphasizes the incongruous, absurd, or ludicrous aspects of life.

3. Humor implies a sympathetic recognition of human values and deals with the foibles and incongruities of human nature good-naturedly exhibited

4. Humor relies upon… Exaggeration Misunderstandings Mistaken identities
4. Juxtapositions and incongruities

5. 5. Repetition
6. Wit and wordplay
7. Stock characters
8. Physical antics, pratfalls, etc.
9. Irony

7. Different Forms of Humor
Parody
Satire
Anecdotes
Caricature
Farce

8. Parody
A humorous imitation of a serious work

9. Satire
The use of humor or ridicule to reveal the faults or weaknesses of humans and human institutions

10. A simple narrative with humorous elements
Anecdote
A simple narrative with humorous elements

11. Portrait in which physical or personality features are exaggerated
caricature
Portrait in which physical or personality features are exaggerated

12. Farce
Genre designed to produce simple, hearty laughter – belly laughs!
Involves:
highly exaggerated or caricatured character types
Ludicrous situations
Broad verbal or physical humor
Most sitcoms could be considered farce

13. The Humors
A “humor” was a bodily fluid (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile) thought to control one’s behavior.

14. Allegedly, a proper mixture produced a well-adjusted individual.
Too much of one fluid produced a distorted personality.

15. The old sense of the word is seen in the phrase:
“He’s in a bad humor.”

16. Some surviving terms…
Sanguine – warm, passionate, cheerful in temperament
Choleric – quick tempered (yellow bile)
Phlegmatic – calm, cool, stolid (from dull to sluggishness)
Bilious – bad tempered, cross, melancholy (black bile)

17. Comedy of humors
A term sometimes applied to plays in which the characters, though somewhat individualized, obviously represent types or moods

18. fable
A tale with animals as characters and with allegorical and satiric implications

19. allegory
Story, poem, play, etc. in which setting, characters, actions represent abstract concepts or moral qualities (or historical figures) and a particular doctrine/thesis/moral is presented

20. Story of the lives of saints and martyrs
Stories for the moral and spiritual edification (improvement) of Christians and the conversion of unbelievers
Deal with virtues of fortitude, chastity, devotion

21. Courtly Love
Doctrine and manner of courtship and love that evolved during the Late Middle Ages and is found foremost in French poetry of that time.

22. Based on stories such as the Roman de la Rose (French, 12th Century)

23. Courtly lover is plunged into a secret, illicit, or adulterous passion for an unattainable and pedestalized lady

24. Love was “the most beautiful of absolute disasters”…love is a blinding, bewildering force

25. The knight or man must prove himself worthy of his lady by doing noble deeds…love purifies him but may doom him to lifelong woe because the woman is unattainable

26. This was not the typical attitude of a man toward his wife
This was not the typical attitude of a man toward his wife. The husband commanded, the wife obeyed.

27. Fabliau(x) Humorous tale popular in Fr. Medieval lit.
Written in verse, humorous satires on human beings
Often bawdy
Sometimes dealt with clergy, ridiculed womanhood
Might have moral but lacked serious intention of the fable