The Ironic Temper and the Comic ImaginationWayne State University Press, 1994 - 249 pages The Ironic Temper and the Comic Imagination examines and illuminates the role which the ironic temper plays in the creation of complex literary comedy. The book focuses on ironic comedy, though not of the kind that is characterized by the surprises and shocks, the incongruities and reversals, of circumstantial irony. Circumstantial—or situational—irony cannot stand alone; it serves, for example, the aggressive functions of satire, or the irrational impulses of farce, or the benevolent, whimsical, or pain-defeating energies of humor. |
Contents
Preface | 9 |
2 | 19 |
IRONISTS AESTHETES AND DECADENTS | 49 |
IRONISTS SATIRISTS AND HUMORISTS | 85 |
THE LIGHTNESS OF IRONIC COMEDY | 143 |
THE DARKNESS OF IRONIC COMEDY | 180 |
Notes | 214 |
Common terms and phrases
absurdist aesthetic Aimée amused Anatole France Antic Hay Bardamu Beckett's becomes Castle Céline chapter Christian circumstantial irony comic Conrad critical cynical dark death Democritus Dennis Dennis's despair detachment devil divine E. M. Forster essay Esseintes Esseintes's Evelyn Waugh example faith farce farcical fiction Forster's France's Gumbril H. T. Lowe-Porter Heyst's human humor Huxley Huxley's idea ideal illusions intellectual introd ironic absurd ironic comedy ironic temper ironic vision ironist irony's Ivan's Jankélévitch Joyce's Kafka's Kierkegaard kind Lafcadio's laugh laughter Lord Henry Lottery in Babylon Lucian Mann's Marius Marius's metaphysical mind Miss Lonelyhearts mockery Montaigne moral murder Musil's narrator narrator's ness Nietzsche novel paradoxes Passage to India Pater play playfulness Point Counter Point Pyrrhonic Pyrrhonic irony ridiculous romantic irony Samuel Beckett satire satirist Schnitzler's sense skepticism Socrates soul Spandrell spirit Thaïs things Thomas Mann tion tragic trans truth Ulrich Ulysses universe Waugh Whispering Glades York