Comedy necessarily involves trouble. Obstacles need to be overcome and comic characters learn in the process, but the kind of comic trouble that drives the ‘text’ in the widest sense differs for male and for female characters. The same is true for the ‘production’ of comedy. All comedy is ‘written’ in one way or another, and the question is whether this practice is distinctly different according to gender or not. Humour necessarily revolves around society’s norms and values, which means that given the gender bias or suppressed gender bias in all societies at all points in history, there is a difference in literature and culture between funny men and funny women. In this lecture, we will look at funny women both in and of literature; funny female characters and funny female writers and we will explore why, if so, their gender makes a difference. Funny women to be discussed range from Shakespeare’s Beatrice via Jane Austen to Miranda Hart; we will ask whether Charlotte Brontë was funny; we will see how Dorothy Parker could be that funny; and we will consider whether a woman’s humour both in literature and in writing is necessarily feminist or not. We will talk about Nora Ephron and Tina Fey alongside Nancy Mitford and Muriel Spark and try to cover funny women of both past and present.
- Lehrende/r: Franziska Quabeck
- Lehrende/r: Franziska Quabeck