h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I admire your entry -- I doubt that I myself would care to stick my own neck out on making literary definitions because there are so many blurred edges.

Irony / Satire -- something by no means ephemeral .Where would you place Swift's * Modest Proposal * , a piece of writing that is as relevant as ever in these days of Third World starvation and corporate greed encouraged by govermental desire to boost economies and gross national product ?

*Gross * -- highly applicable .

Then there is an example like the *Oxen of the Sun* chapter in Joyce's *Ulysses * -- in what category would you place it ?

A final comment on the *presentation * of comedy by the actor/comedian. It is a deadly serious business , even to the pratfall , which is why Benny Hill , with his smirks , could never in my canon be a true comedian .

"I admire your entry -- I doubt that I myself would care to stick my own neck out on making literary definitions because there are so many blurred edges."

Thankyou. But bear in mind that a good 50% of writing for the Edited Guide is bluffness, which I have in droves.



"Irony / Satire -- something by no means ephemeral."

I tried to make it clear in the entry that irony is very rarely singular, hence the reason I didn't give a host of examples. Irony is very much an inground part of satire, the latter being where I would firmly place much, if not all, of Swift's work.



"Then there is an example like the *Oxen of the Sun* chapter in Joyce's *Ulysses * -- in what category would you place it?"

Haven't read it, which solves most of my problems.
As I said when this was in Peer Review, it would be a very boring world if we tried to categorise everything that was vaguely humorous. All I tried to do was give illustrative examples.



"A final comment on the *presentation * of comedy by the actor/comedian. It is a deadly serious business , even to the pratfall , which is why Benny Hill , with his smirks , could never in my canon be a true comedian ."

Not really relevant to the subject matter.

B

I tossed in that last comment because some comedy is presented in other than written form and the manner maketh the comic.

Slapstick , for example.

I see no reason for your being sorry !!!

It was more of an ellipsis: "Sorry (but I think that's a c**p suggestion)"

The entry started out as a fairly sober look at the Roman treatment of comedy, but halfway through, I realised it'd be much more fun to chuck in a lot of modern references and lose the Classicism.

The manner does indeed maketh the comic - I see potential for a Collab entry there, actually.

B