Self-Made Men - Softcover

Leacock, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1939846331 ISBN 13: 9781939846334

Verlag: ArtWrite Productions, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

Stephen Leacock headed the political science and economics departments at McGill University in Toronto and established a notable reputation as an academic economist. He also wrote humorous essays. Many of his friends presumed he wrote them in idle moments when his wearied brain was unable to perform the serious labors of the economist. In fact, it was exactly the opposite. He found it no challenge to write instructive, academic stuff fortified by facts and figures, but to write something straight out of one's mind that was worth reading for its own sake was an arduous contrivance that he claims he only accomplished in fortunate moments. Yet somehow between the years 1915 and 1925, Leacock became the most popular humorist in the English speaking world. He consistently forced belly laughter by poking fun at people's foolish acts and ideas and excelled at adroitly balancing cutting satire with over-the-top absurdity. In one way or another, these six Leacock essays humorously address the perception of success in life, primarily as it pertains to wealth and health. As Leacock tells it, the successful pursuit of wealth or health tends to distort how people perceive themselves, a distortion that might be remedied if they were to add the undisciplined intake of food, smoke, and drink into their lives. As this example shows, Leacock's satire is too far over the top to be mean-spirited. It never descends into harsh analysis of the human condition. In absurdity he found the key to poking fun at the human condition in a way that appeals to everyone, including the specific segments of the population being targeted with his satire.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Stephen Leacock was a Canadian educator, political scientist, author, and comedian. Between 1915 and 1925, he was the most well-known English-speaking comic in the world. He is well-known for his light humour and condemnation of other people's folly. Stephen Leacock was born on December 30, 1869, in Swanmore, a village near Southampton, southern England. He was the third of eleven children born to (Walter) Peter Leacock, who was born and raised at Oak Hill on the Isle of Wight, an estate purchased by his grandfather after returning from Madeira, where his family had made a fortune from plantations and Leacock's Madeira wine, founded in 1760. Agnes, Stephen's mother, was born in Soberton, the youngest daughter of the Rev. Stephen Butler and his second wife (Caroline Linton Palmer) of Bury Lodge, the Butler estate that overlooked the village of Hambledon in Hampshire. Leacock was named after Stephen Butler, the maternal grandchild of Admiral James Richard Dacres and brother of Sir Thomas Dacres Butler, Usher of the Black Rod.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: ArtWrite Productions
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2024
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1939846331
• ISBN 13: 9781939846334
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 92
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland