Comedy: A Bibliography

A Bibliography of Critical Studies in English on the Theory and Practice of Comedy in Drama, Theatre, and Performance

“Comedy has been particularly unpropitious to definers,” declared the great dictionary maker Dr. Johnson, and the German novelist and aesthetician Jean Paul quipped, “Definitions of the comic serve the sole purpose of being themselves comic.”

Accepting the challenge, the keenest minds have been drawn to the debate about the nature of comedy and attracted to speculation about its theory and practice. For all lovers of comedy, Comedy: A Bibliography is an essential guide and resource, providing authors, titles, and publication data for over a thousand books and articles devoted to this most elusive of genres.