Mr. Punch himself is an English character of Pulcinells from Italian comedy Del’Art together with French Polishenelle and German Kasper. This name he deserves because of his incredibly long nose, like chicken has (pulcino from Italian means chicken). On a level with Arlekin he was one of the popular mash. He frequently becomes the origin of satiric, because of his wit and jolly, in a performances of Del’Art. Punch is a hunchback on the stage, who speaks shrilling voice. The main feature of his character is stupidity, however sometimes he can be very clever and deft at the some time. His negative traits are laziness, gluttony and tendency to commit a crime. He speaks out lots of quips, some of them indecent.
Mr. Punch gave his name for British weekly satirical journal “The London Charivari” (by analogy with French journal “Le Charivari”) which was published with the short breaks from 1841 to 2002.
Started its history as unknown magazine sooner “Punch” became a model of British humour, part of classical culture of Victorian’s age. Long time the journal hold a high standards of humour in literature, moreover, its glory thuds on the both hides of Atlantic. Different times, different talented authors worked with “Punch”, for instance, Alan Milne, Somerset Maugham, the cartoonists Myles Foster, Ethel Reed сo-operated with the journal.
Big attention must be given to legacy of caricature which magazine leave us with the help of such talented cartoonists such as William Thackeray, Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, Patrick Jake O’Rourke, Graham Laidler. Political satire and cartoon became as we see now with the thanks of this authors.
Popularity of the magaine grew over the whole length of the centurie, till it reached the peak in 1940-s. Sorry to say, the next ten years audience of the journal became low, that cause to permanent closing of “Punch” in 1992, than it was definitely was closed in 2002.
