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Birkhäuser

Comic Sense

Reading Robert Coover, Stanley Elkin, Philip Roth

  • Book
  • © 1994

Overview

Authors:
  1. Thomas Pughe

    1. Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Université d’Orléans, Orléans, France

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Table of contents (5 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages I-XIII
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  2. Comic Sense and the Problem of Attitude

    • Thomas Pughe
    Pages 1-42

  3. Robert Coover and the Comedy of Good and Bad Sport

    • Thomas Pughe
    Pages 43-81

  4. Philip Roth’s Zuckerman Novels as a Comic “Künstler-Roman”

    • Thomas Pughe
    Pages 83-125

  5. Stanley Elkin’s Comic Passion

    • Thomas Pughe
    Pages 127-166

  6. Conclusion

    • Thomas Pughe
    Pages 167-183

  7. Back Matter

    Pages 185-197
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Keywords

About this book

The idea for this study came to me in the course of my reading of innova­ tive US-American! fiction of the last three decades. I observed that much of it is cast in the comic mode - or, more precisely, that there seems to be in contemporary fiction an affinity between 'innovation' and 'the comic' and that this affinity, furthermore, appears to be characteristic of postmo­ dernism. It is obvious, at the same time, that comic has become an elusive and, more often than not, a disputable category. Frederick Karl, in his sur­ vey of American Fictions 1940-1980, maintains, for instance, that much comic writing consists in ridicule that lacks deeper intellectual and cul­ tural roots. "Wit and mockery," he notes, "by themselves have little lasting value. Even in the best of such fiction, Gravity's Rainbow, one is made aware of attenuated skits stiched onto previous segments, rather than baked in by a defined point of view. " (Karl: 27) Such assessments of course challenge my view that the comic is in significant ways connected with what is innovative in postmodernist US-American fiction. Yet the term comic -or related terms like humour, parody, irony and so fort- is regularly and heavily employed in discussions or reviews of con­ temporary fiction.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Université d’Orléans, Orléans, France

    Thomas Pughe

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Comic Sense

  • Book Subtitle: Reading Robert Coover, Stanley Elkin, Philip Roth

  • Authors: Thomas Pughe

  • Series Title: International Cooper Series in English Language and Literature

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-7746-6

  • Publisher: Birkhäuser Basel

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

  • Copyright Information: Springer Basel AG 1994

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-7643-5023-9Published: 01 April 1994

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-0348-7746-6Published: 09 March 2013

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XIII, 197

  • Topics: Comparative Literature

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