Literature and the Comedic Form is designed to investigate central questions about humor while introducing students to numerous facets of comedy in literature. What is laughter? What is funny? How are these two both very different—one physical the other mental—and related? Although the comedic is something experienced on any given day, we rarely stop to rationalize why our bodies are convulsing uncontrollably. Students will explore various conventions in comedy, specifically, the mechanics of jokes, the experience of laughter, Greek comedic structure, hyperbole, satire, parody, black humor, and irony, in order to understand how each works, both emotionally and intellectually, on an individual level and in works of literature.