Playboys and Killjoys

"Valuable addition to a neglected area of the study of human experience; that is, comedy, as much a part of the human experience as grief, but rarely addressed."--Carol B. Welborn, Barat College
"...the student-as every other reader-will revel in the suitable and striking formulations that mark every chapter."--Ronald W. Tobin, The French Review
"Levin conveys his extensive, polyglot learning with an elegance, deftness, and old-fashioned zest that make his exposition about pleasure a pleasure to read."--Modern Language Review
"Exhilarating, wide-ranging and immensely civilized....Levin lucidly and richly demonstrates...a very fruitful and illuminating way to look at comedies through the ages."--The New York Times Book Review
"Levin's persuasive and zestful discussion of theatrical comedy and comic theory demonstrates...that humor is not a fragile bud about to shrivel under the wintry pinch of analysis."--The Boston Globe
"Levin brings an impressive pedigree to Playboys and Killjoys....[He] discusses comic theory in clear, understandable terms and, best of all, allows the comic spirit plenty of room to breathe."*
"Levin brings an impressive pedigree to Playboys and Killjoys....The result is a book that ranges widely, and easily, through comedies of the Western tradition. It discusses comic theory in clear, understandable terms and, best of all, allows the comic spirit plenty of room to breathe."--The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Levin's prose reflects the highest degree of polish and sophistication....The ease with which he moves from Aristophanes and Aristotle to Brecht and Bakhtin, making sense in the process, can only be attributed to his forty plus years of scholarship....His stature among scholars matches that of many of his creative subjects."--The Harvard Book Review
"Levin's prose reflects the highest degree of polish and sophistication....His stature among scholars matches that of many of his creative subjects."--The Harvard Book Review
"This superb study of comedy as a dramatic art form touches on virtually every point of departure--history, ethos, plotting, characterization, atmosphere."--Library Journal
"A comprehensive study of one of the broadest and most mercurial of subjects--comedy....What makes Levin's book not only valuable but entrancing is its author's seemingly boundless acquaintance with comedies from Aristophanes to Albee, Plautus to Pinter, Molière to the Marx Brothers....His quotations and comments are in themselves a mine of humor."--Modern Language Studies
"Levin's book is literary, beautifully written, Latinate, highly nuanced, and leisurely in its approach to comedy."--Society