Dark Humour and Social Satire in the Modern British Novel: Triumph of Narcissism (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781403963659)

Colletta uses psychoanalytic theories of joke-work and gallows humour to argue that dark humour is an important, defining characteristic of Modernism. She brings together the usual suspects alongside more often overlooked writers from the period, and asks probing questions about the relationship between a dark humour that 'revels in the non-rational, the unstable, and the fragmented, and resists easy definition and political usefulness' and the historical and social circumstances of the period. Colletta makes a compelling argument that probing deeply into the nature of humour or satire that define these 'social comedies' brings to light a more complex, and more accurate, understanding of the social changes and historical circumstances that define the modern era.

Author: L. Colletta
ISBN-10: 1403963657
ISBN-13: 9781403963659
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Language: English
Published: 11/13/2003
Pages: 154
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.66lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.80w x 0.60d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 02/01/2004 pg. 1076