Title: Comic visions, female voices
First published: 1998
Description: Since the 1970s, a time when perceptions about women began to change radically, a growing number of women writers have expressed their most deeply felt ideas through humor. In Comic Visions, Female Voices, Barbara Bennett shows how humor tests boundaries and pushes limits, doubly so for women, and that writing combined with laughter is virtually a revolutionary act for women.

This study examines the intricate role humor plays in contemporary southern novels by such writers as Anne Tyler, Lee Smith, Alice Walker, Doris Betts, Gail Godwin, Ellen Gilchrist, Bobbie Ann Mason, and Kaye Gibbons. Bennett theorizes that humor helps define voice, communicate theme, and, in essence, establish a new kind of southern literature with a tone that is often more optimistic and less guilt ridden than that of fiction written by men or by earlier women writers.

Most southern female humor has a distinct voice and vision - iconoclastic yet ultimately unifying, challenging traditional relationships yet finally affirming both self and family.
Subjects: American Humorous stories, American fiction, American wit and humor, Comic, The, in literature, History, History and criticism, Humorous stories, American, In literature, Intellectual life, Women and literature, Women authors, Vrouwelijke auteurs, Récits humoristiques américains, Humor (grappigheden), Frauenerzählung, Femmes et littérature, Frauenroman, Humoreske, Komik, Frauenliteratur, Literature, Roman américain, Histoire, Histoire et critique, Südstaaten, Comique dans la littérature, Humour américain, Humoristische Prosa, États-Unis (Sud) dans la littérature, Dans la littérature, LITERARY CRITICISM, American, General, Humor
Places: Southern States
Time periods: 1865-, 20th century
LC classification: PS261 .B46 1998