Wit, Margaret Edson - Bruce Michelson (essay date 2000)
Bruce Michelson (essay date 2000)
SOURCE: Michelson, Bruce. “Wit, Wyt, and Modern Literary Predicaments.” In Literary Wit, pp. 125-45. Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Press, 2000.
[In the following essay, Michelson assesses the value and meaning of ‘wit’ in the context of its modern and medieval meanings through his examination of Edson's Wit and, to a lesser extent, John Redford's 1530 drama The Play of Wyt and Science.]
I do so loathe explanations.
—J. M. Barrie
Francis Bacon was right: the program that began in doubt has produced certainties beyond a medieval mind's wildest dreams. But what was once a certainty now drifts in a gulf of doubt wider than the millennium itself.
—Richard Powers
As 1999 began, an off-Broadway production of an austere drama with the darkly witty title Wit, written by first-time playwright...
[The entire page is 11421 words long]
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