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Laughter, Power, and the Unconscious offers paradigm-breaking insights into the psychological and sociopolitical dimensions of humour and comedy. Based on an innovative audience experiment at Shakespeare's Globe, the authors develop a revolutionary theory of humour as manic defence, challenging Freud's classic formulations while engaging with contemporary humour theories.
The text explores three key domains: firstly, it establishes and evaluates the theory in comparison to Freud's work in
Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious, while positioning it within major humour frameworks; secondly, it demonstrates the theory's application to Renaissance comedy, examining characters like Malvolio from
Twelfth Night alongside stock figures of cuckolds and madmen in both English theatrical traditions and
commedia dell'arte; finally, it investigates the theory's broader sociopolitical relevance by analysing war-related humour and racist jokes while addressing comedy's dual capacity to both challenge and reinforce existing power structures.
This volume will appeal to the scholars and students of theatre and performance studies, psychology, literary theory and cultural studies interested in the sociopolitical implications of humour.
List of contents
List of figuresList of tablesAcknowledgements1. Introduction: the Research in Action audience experiment at Shakespeare's Globe Bridget Escolme and Maria Grazia Turri2. Psychoanalytic rationale of the audience experiment Maria Grazia Turri3. Researching unconscious responses to early modern characters at Shakespeare's Globe: results Maria Grazia Turri4. A new theory of humour as manic defence Maria Grazia Turri5. Reading theories of humour through the manic defence Maria Grazia Turri6. The ecology of laughter and humour at the intersection of culture and biologyMaria Grazia Turri7. New insights into the socio-politics of humour Maria Grazia Turri8. The historicised subject: psychoanalytic discourse, Cultural Materialism, laughter and power Bridget Escolme9. Cuckolds and madmen: comic strength in the notoriously weak Bridget Escolme10. Laughing with the 'whole pack' of us: Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and comic strength in contemporary production of early modern drama Bridget Escolme11. Reading comedy as genre through the manic defence Maria Grazia Turri12. Elements of unconscious emotional processes for a socio-politics of comedy Maria Grazia TurriConclusions: a dialogue Index
