Research Paper on:
Literary Nature of Comedy

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
-- compared with the thousands that yearly die from other viruses such as the flu, which is accepted as a "normal" -- and has a cure rate of 98 percent,  people are panicking. Treating his topic sarcastically, the Daly Show, a comedy "news" show broadcast on cables The Comedy Channel, parodied the announcement by Vietnam that this country  has controlled the outbreak within their borders. Daily Show announcer Jon Stewart commented that the "medical triumph" would be the subject of a forthcoming movie "20 days and 20  nights," that being the time that the star of the film has to go without catching the disease (Daily Show, 2003). This, of course, satirizes the movie industry, as well,  and its tendency to turn any news event, no matter how trivial, into a sensationalized "docu-drama." The Daily Show treatment of the SARS scare points to one of the  many uses of comedy. The various news agencies have sensationalized this medical concern, blowing it up considerably out of proportion to the actual danger to the global population as a  whole. By making fun of this concern, the Daily Show satire serves to deflate the tension surrounding this subject and put the topic back into a more realistic perspective. As  this suggests, comedy provides numerous benefits. When the famous Shakespearean actor Edmund Kean lay on his deathbed, it is reputed that he made the comment, "Dying is easy, comedy  is hard." This remark makes us smile, or even laugh out loud if one has never heard this quote. It is pictured as occurring while a man is dying,  a very serious situation. Yet, it is precisely this situation that makes the quote funny. Considering the circumstances, it is unexpected, therefore, it is surprising. Proper timing, so that