- Title:
- "Remember the Porter: Knock-Knock Jokes, Tragedy, and Other Unfunny Things"
- Author:
- Barret, Chris.
- Type:
- Book Chapter
- Year:
- 2013
- Publication Information:
- Moncrief, Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, 61–71.
- Annotation:
Examines Macbeth 2.3.1-20 as an instance of the "first knock-knock joke in English" and "of genetic hybridity." Concludes that "the joke is not an interlude or a relief or an indulgence. Rather it is an unforgiving mirror" directed at the audience and thus resolving the tension between tragedy and the knock-knock joke.