Some key terms and concepts: review
Note: these notes are to help you review. They do not include all possible terms and concepts that may be covered on an exam. You should be able to define terms and concepts from the course and to discuss them in relation to specific examples.
Comedy:
a mode: materials are selected and managed primarily to amuse us.
a genre: characterized by plots leading to happy endings and by informal (“low”) style. See the various theorists.

Satire:
A type of comedy that belittles its subject by evoking attitudes of amusement, scorn, or indignation. Satire uses laughter not as an end in itself but as a weapon. Satire is justified as a corrective or means of reform.
Problems in creating satire: (1) balancing anger and humor, or balancing comedy with a reformist message; (2) how to bring a satirical story to a conclusion while remaining in a comic mode.

Parody: A type of comedy that imitates the serious materials, conventions, style, or manner of a familiar artistic form (or a particular work). Parody exaggerates or twists the form in order to render it ridiculous. Parody is often used as a technique in satire. Burlesque is sometimes used as a synomym for parody.

Farce:
A type of comedy designed to provoke simple hearty laughter. Farce employs broad humor and horseplay. Characters are usually highly exaggerated caricatures; situations are improbable and ludicrous. In its use of exaggeration, farce is related to parody. Farce generally does not lend itself to serious themes, except indirectly. Farce is closely related to burlesque.

Screwball comedy:
Name used to describe a group of film comedies made in Hollywood in the 1930s; also applied to similar movies made since the 1930s. Screwball comedy is closely related to farce. See Lent’s article on the screwball comedy notes page for conventions of screwball comedy.

Wit:
Verbal humor based on manipulation of language—puns, twisted logic, and other forms of wordplay.

Caricature:
Creating a character by picking certain individual qualities of a person and exaggerating or distorting them for ridiculous effect. Caricature is closely related to parody: a caricature is a parody of a particular person.

Humorous character: a character in which a single characteristic predominates, usually in exaggeraged form. This form of characterization originated in the theory of humors., the notion that human character is made of up a combination of four elements or "humours."

Carnivalization - Centrifugal & Centripetal:
Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept for a particular mode of comedy and its sociological importance. See Bakhtin’s essay for the concept and its history.

Liminality: from the Latin threshold, a state of being between two states or conditions. Liminal beings or situations often have strong cultural or symbolic energy. Among examples are rites of passage rituals (graduation, marriage, funeral), transitional times (twilight, New Year's Day), various states of consciousness (dreams, visions), beings like angels, cyborgs, transsexuals, and locations such as borders, doors, or bridges.Some important comic figures, especially, clowns and fools, are defined by liminality.

Schadenfreude: from the German words for 'damage' and 'joy,' Schadenfreude designates pleasure derived from the misfortune of another. Malicious comedy is based on schadenfreude.

Meta-forms vs mimesis:
Meta (Greek for ‘beyond, of a higher type’) designates self-referential treatment of a genre or type of artistic expression. For example, meta-fiction is fiction dealing with the nature of fiction. A meta form draws attention to (‘foregrounds’) the conventions or artistic qualities of its form: for example, a meta-comedy would employ techniques to remind the reader of the constructed nature of comedy and the artificiality of its conventions. Signs of meta treatment include specifically discussing in the work its own nature or techniques, or openly and deliberately violating accepted conventions so as to draw attention to the artificial, created nature of the artistic work. Meta treatment generally works against mimesis (imitation), the tradition of realistic presentation.