
The culmination of a lifetime's fascination with humour in all its forms, this book is the first in any language to embrace such an impressive span of authors and such a broad range of topics in French literary humour. In nine wide-ranging chapters Walter Redfern considers diverse writers and topics, including: Diderot, viewed as a laughing philosopher, mainly through his fiction (Les Bijoux indiscrets, Le Neeu de Rameau, and Jacques le fataliste); humourlessness, corraling Rousseau, Sade, the Christian God, and Jean-Pierre Brisset; the aesthete Huysmans, in both his avatars, Symbolist and Naturalist (A Rebours, Sac au dos, and other texts); the dramatic use of parrots by Flaubert, Queneau, and Beckett; Vallès and la blague; exaggeration in Vallès and Céline (Mort à credit and L'Enfant); the fiction, plays, and autobiography of Sartre; bad jokes in Beckett; wordplay in Tournier's fiction (especially Roi des aulnes and Les Météores). Five interleaved 'riffs' on laughter, dreams, black humour, politics, and taste, carry the enquiry into questions of humour outside of the purely French context, enhancing a book that impresses as much with its vivacity of style as with the breadth and depth of its scholarship.
This work investigates the evolution and mechanics of humor within French literature, spanning from the Enlightenment to the late twentieth century. Walter Redfern, a scholar of French literature, synthesizes decades of research to examine how humor functions as both a philosophical tool and a stylistic device. He argues that humor in French writing is not merely comedic, but a complex mode of inquiry that reveals the tensions between language, politics, and the human condition.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Scholars and critics recognize this text as a significant contribution to the study of French literary humor due to its expansive scope and stylistic vivacity. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose, which balances rigorous literary analysis with a playful, engaging tone.
Page Count:
256
Publication Date:
2008-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0191528706
ISBN-13:
9780191528705
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