Michelson argues that to achieve a modernized and less-reductive understanding of the comic mode, conventional ideas must be extended, refreshed, qualified, and ultimately left behind. Revisiting Bergson, Freud, Bakhtin, and other authorities, he develops a new description of literary wit, with an emphasis on brevity, eloquence, and surprise, and gives special attention to the power and provenance of the modern epigram.
To develop this new approach, Michelson explores Mark Twain's "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" and Oscar Wilde's "Preface" to "The Picture of Dorian Gray." He also offers the first extended discussion of two celebrated recent dramas - Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia" and Margaret Edson's Pulitzer-winning "Wit" - as well as insightful readings of major poems by Richard Wilbur. He concludes with a suggestive look at the contemporary revolution in cognitive science and its implications for our understanding of the comic dimension in modern literature.
