Necessary madness
Subtitle: the humor of domesticity in nineteenth-century American literature
By: Gregg Camfield.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 236
Subjects: American wit and humor -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Literature and society -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Man-woman relationships in literature; Marriage in literature; Family in literature; Home in literature
Description: In this book, Gregg Camfield explores nineteenth-century American humor from the perspective of gender and domestic ideology, challenging recent theory asserting a broad gulf between men's and women's humor during the period and contributing vital new insights to the study of humor in general. Capturing in part I a vision of humor unique to the era, Camfield examines the period's faith in what was called "amiable humor," a genial and supple comic mode whose non-aggression makes it resist easy assimilation to theories stressing humor's basis in hostility, negation, rage, and other combative or displaced energies.

Turning next to literary case studies powerfully revealing of this contact, Camfield in part II pairs male and female humorists - Washington Irving and Fanny Fern; Harriet Beecher Stowe and Herman Melville; Mark Twain and Marietta Holley; and George Washington Harris and Mary Wilkins Freeman - not only to demonstrate the way these influential writers approach domesticity with genial humor, but also to support his claim that gender difference does not always correlate to differences in viewpoint and practice within this common style.

Broadening out to an intriguing consideration of humor theory in part III, Camfield draws on recent work in psychology, culture studies, neo-pragmatist philosophy, and neuroscience to model a compelling alternative view of humor capable of negotiating both the complexities of nineteenth-century American humor and the comic art of periods before and since. Students and scholars of humor, nineteenth-century American literature and culture, and women's writing, will find Necessary Madness to be a provocative, essential achievement.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 213-225) and index.