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1 results

  • Chapter 6 - The State of Our Union

  • from Part I - Form and Genre
  • Edited by William Huntting Howell, Boston University, Greta LaFleur, Yale University, Connecticut
  • Book:
    American Literature in Transition, 1770–1828
    Published online:
    09 June 2022
    Print publication:
    23 June 2022, pp 93-111

  • Summary

    Comedies rely on the union of opposites – whether those opposites might be literally characters of two different races or oppositional ideas about the fate of the young nation. Comedy often rests on juxtapositions in which incongruity creates a sense of the absurd. However, with the distance of time, the humor becomes harder to read. It may be because the comedy now appears offensive to contemporary audiences in the ways it approaches material related to identity – whether it be race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion. This chapter explores a combination of American-authored comedies and popular British works that continued to circulate in the American repertoire throughout the early national period. It also touches on some forms of comedy – particularly circus and pantomime performance – that audiences imagined as more “democratic” and accessible.