Title: French laughter : literary humour from Diderot to Tournier /
Authors: Redfern, W. D.
Publisher: Oxford University Press,
Year: 2008
Subjects: French literature History and criticism; Laughter in literature.; Humor in literature.
Abstract: The culmination of a lifetime's fascination with humour, Walter Redfern's book treats major French writers from the 18th to the 20th centuries as humorists, including Diderot, Rousseau, Sade, Huysmans, Flaubert, Beckett, and Tournier. He considers irony, hyperbole, wordplay, jokes, dialogue, humour as philosophical speculation, and plagiarism.
Contents: The laughing philosopher: Diderot ; Riff on laughter -- The question of humourlessness (Rousseau, Sade, God, and Brisset) ; Riff on dreams -- Huysmans: back-to-front, and backpacking -- A little bird tells us: Parrots in Flaubert, Queneau, Beckett (and Tutti Quanti) -- Blague hard! Valles ; Riff on black humour -- Upping the anti/e: exaggeration in Celine and Valles ; Riff on politics -- Drole de philosophie: Sartre -- Bad Jokes and Beckett ; Riff on taste -- Approximating Man: Michel Tournier's play with language.