Patterns of Divine Comedy

Jack R.D. S.

ISBN 10: 0859912817 / ISBN 13: 9780859912815

Published by D. S Brewerer, Suffolk, 1989

About this Item

Contents: Medieval attitudes in comedy. The Miracle Circles: history as comic progression, Laughter and wit in the Miracle Cycles, The early moralities as divine comedies, A study of medieval English drama, 180 pages.

Seller Inventory # 009782

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Patterns of Divine Comedy
• Publisher: D. S Brewerer, Suffolk
• Publication Date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0859912817
• ISBN 13: 9780859912815
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition
• Condition: Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Good

About this title

Synopsis

This is the first book to explore medieval dramatic comedy with an understanding of its real aims, generic coherence and structural patterns, and to apply to it the critical principle commonly found in any assessment of classicalor renaissance drama.
The miracle cycles and early morality plays are examined in the context of the medieval understanding of comedy, the contemporary allegorical vision of the world, and the prevailing theological conception of time. This approch explains how medieval comedy contains the material of history and tragedy while still remaining joyous. It also illuminates the place of laughter in divine comedy; in his extended treatment of this topicProfessor Jack shows how some comic techniques have been obscured by too resolutely Christian an interpretation, and how others were more subtly employed due to their spiritual context.