Attend the MIT production of Sheridan's late 18th-century comedy "School for Scandal." Write a critical review attending to the production as an interpretation of the text, to performance and to the "theatrical" dimensions of the experience.

Assignment 2

Do a critical review of a popular-release film comedy, some time during the spring term. Just as you paid attention, in the first assignment, to the theatrical dimensions of the theatrical experience, in this review consider how the cinematic dimensions, strategies, and tricks of the film form help to shape your experience of the film comedy.

Assignment 3

Memorize 20 lines from the "Fall" sequence of Paradise Lost or from one of the pivotal scenes of Romeo and Juliet. Prove somehow that you know the lines; you figure out how. Recite in class (as a set piece or discretely during class discussions during that class or weeks later when the conversation devolves to the earlier text), or in the hall, on the radio. If necessary leave the recitation on my answering-machine, write them out and-on the honor-code-tape them to my door, leave them in my mail-box, take out an ad in Tech Talk...

Assignment 4

Consider the function and form of jokes, in your family or circle of friends or social world or bar-scene or dormitory. Transcribe three jokes (one per page.... no, a good joke doesn't need to fill the whole page!). You should sign your own name to this page as "anthropologist" who is recording the data from a "native informant," and you should note the place, date, and if necessary class, race, or gender of the teller, or the social circumstance of the joke (locker-room, wedding shower, pizza delivery, etc.) You don't, however, have to take responsibility for the joke, its wit or funniness or tact or potentially insulting or demeaning content; when you submit it we understand you offer it as an example of what this person thought was funny in this circumstance. Some jokes will be "funny", some won't... finding them funny might be a good secondary effect of this exercise, but it's primarily a structure of listening and recording. You may if you like include one visual cartoon for your verbal joke, but you should still designate where it occurred, and in what context.

Assignment 5

For each of these exercises, read one of the course-pack essays that lays out a theory of comedy or laughter or wit. This exercise is simply and honestly an enterprise of summary and responsible paraphrase, for a couple of pages, in good prose.

Assignment 6 (Final Exam)

The final exam will consist of a few identification-questions and one or two short essays which ask you to apply the critical paradigm from theorists or class discussion (ref. #5) to "comic" or satiric texts.