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Full Description
Modern poetry, at least according to the current consensus, is difficult and often depressing. But as Humor in Modern American Poetry shows, modern poetry is full of humorous moments, from comic verse published in popular magazines to the absurd juxtapositions of The Cantos. The essays in this collection show that humor is as essential to the serious work of William Carlos Williams as it is to the light verse of Phyllis McGinley. For the writers in this volume, the point of humor is not to provide "comic relief," a brief counterpoint to the poem's more serious themes; humor is central to the poems' projects. These poets use humor to claim their own poetic authority; to re-define literary tradition; to show what audience they are writing for; to make political attacks; and, perhaps most surprisingly, to promote sympathy among their readers.
The essays in this book include single-author studies, discussions of literary circles, and theories of form. Taken together, they help to begin a new conversation about modernist poetry, one that treats its lighthearted moments not as decorative but as substantive. Humor defines groups and marks social boundaries, but it also leads us to transgress those boundaries; it forges ties between the writer and the reader, blurs the line between public and private, and becomes a spur to self-awareness.
Contents
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Theories of Humor and Modern Poetry
Rachel Trousdale (Framingham State University, USA)
1. Humor and Authority in Pound's Cantos
Joel Elliot Slotkin (Towson University, USA)
2. Cummings' Erotic Humor
William Solomon (SUNY Buffalo, USA)
3. Emotional Comedies: Lorine Niedecker's "For Paul"
Marta Figlerowicz (Yale University, USA)
4. Laughing in the Gallery: Melvin Tolson's Refusal to Hush
Lena Hill (University of Iowa, USA)
5. Poetry and Good Humour: Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop
Hugh Haughton (University of York, UK)
6. Convention and Mysticism: Dickinson, Hardy, Williams
Alan Shapiro (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, USA)
7. Phyllis McGinley: Defending Housewifery with a Laugh
Megan Leroy (Independent Scholar, USA)
8. Tell Me the Truth: Humor, Love, and Community in Auden's Late-Thirties Poetry
Rachel Trousdale (Framingham State University, USA)
9. Merrill, Comedy, Conversation
Stephen Burt (Harvard University, USA)
10. "This Comic Version of Myself": Humor and Autobiography in John Ashbery's Poetry and Prose
Karin Roffman (West Point, USA)
Bibliography
Index
