4 Poetry and Modes of Humor
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Calista McRae
Abstract
While poetry has often been conceived of as a largely serious genre, it has multiple affinities with comedy. This chapter begins by briefly surveying our standard theories of humor: superiority, incongruity, relief. It then sets out the comic affordances of poetic form: form - whether strict rhyme, the freest of free verse, or something in between - can generate and reinforce comic effects. Taking its examples primarily from twentieth- and twenty-first century work, the chapter then defines three modes of humor: complaint, observation, and play. These interlocking modes demonstrate the range and complexity of humor in modern American poetry - and the conceptual instability that both poetry and humor share.
Abstract
While poetry has often been conceived of as a largely serious genre, it has multiple affinities with comedy. This chapter begins by briefly surveying our standard theories of humor: superiority, incongruity, relief. It then sets out the comic affordances of poetic form: form - whether strict rhyme, the freest of free verse, or something in between - can generate and reinforce comic effects. Taking its examples primarily from twentieth- and twenty-first century work, the chapter then defines three modes of humor: complaint, observation, and play. These interlocking modes demonstrate the range and complexity of humor in modern American poetry - and the conceptual instability that both poetry and humor share.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Editors’ Preface V
- Contents VII
- Introduction XI
-
Part I: How Poetry Makes Things Happen
- 1 Framing Modern Subjectivity: Poetry and Experience 1
- 2 Poetry, Politics, and the Politics of Poetry: How Poems Interfere 29
- 3 Tuning in on Sister Arts: Poetry and Music 53
- 4 Poetry and Modes of Humor 73
-
Part II: American Poetry and Poetics Up Close: From the Puritans to Postmodernity and Beyond
- 5 Poetry and the Puritan Ethic: Anne Bradstreet, Samuel Danforth, Edward Taylor 97
- 6 Neoclassicism and Nation-Building: The Poetry of Phillis Wheatley and Philip Freneau 113
- 7 The Price of Poetry: Horton, Larcom, Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes 131
- 8 Romanticism, Transcendentalism, Environmentalism: The Ecological Poetics of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller 151
- 9 Mind, Body, and Consciousness: The Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson 173
- 10 Poetry at War: Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and Stephen Crane 195
- 11 Modern(ist) American Poetry 215
- 12 Modernist Materialities: Objects in Poetry 237
- 13 Poet-Anthropologists and Boasian “Culture”: Edward Sapir, Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead 259
- 14 The Poet-Critics, Regionalism, and the Rise of Formalism 279
- 15 Unconventionally Conventional: Elizabeth Bishop and the Modernization of Traditional Forms 301
- 16 Poetic Modes of Early Postmodernism: Black Mountain School, Beat Movement, New York School 317
- 17 Poetry as Confession? The Cases of Anne Sexton, W. D. Snodgrass, and Sylvia Plath 343
- 18 African American Poetry: From the Harlem Renaissance to the Black Arts Movement and Beyond 359
- 19 Poetry as Feminist Critique 375
- 20 Words in Performance: The Art and Poetics of Language Poetry 395
- 21 How Poetry Matters Now 417
- Name Index 437
- Subject Index 451
- List of Contributors 463
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Editors’ Preface V
- Contents VII
- Introduction XI
-
Part I: How Poetry Makes Things Happen
- 1 Framing Modern Subjectivity: Poetry and Experience 1
- 2 Poetry, Politics, and the Politics of Poetry: How Poems Interfere 29
- 3 Tuning in on Sister Arts: Poetry and Music 53
- 4 Poetry and Modes of Humor 73
-
Part II: American Poetry and Poetics Up Close: From the Puritans to Postmodernity and Beyond
- 5 Poetry and the Puritan Ethic: Anne Bradstreet, Samuel Danforth, Edward Taylor 97
- 6 Neoclassicism and Nation-Building: The Poetry of Phillis Wheatley and Philip Freneau 113
- 7 The Price of Poetry: Horton, Larcom, Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes 131
- 8 Romanticism, Transcendentalism, Environmentalism: The Ecological Poetics of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller 151
- 9 Mind, Body, and Consciousness: The Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson 173
- 10 Poetry at War: Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, and Stephen Crane 195
- 11 Modern(ist) American Poetry 215
- 12 Modernist Materialities: Objects in Poetry 237
- 13 Poet-Anthropologists and Boasian “Culture”: Edward Sapir, Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead 259
- 14 The Poet-Critics, Regionalism, and the Rise of Formalism 279
- 15 Unconventionally Conventional: Elizabeth Bishop and the Modernization of Traditional Forms 301
- 16 Poetic Modes of Early Postmodernism: Black Mountain School, Beat Movement, New York School 317
- 17 Poetry as Confession? The Cases of Anne Sexton, W. D. Snodgrass, and Sylvia Plath 343
- 18 African American Poetry: From the Harlem Renaissance to the Black Arts Movement and Beyond 359
- 19 Poetry as Feminist Critique 375
- 20 Words in Performance: The Art and Poetics of Language Poetry 395
- 21 How Poetry Matters Now 417
- Name Index 437
- Subject Index 451
- List of Contributors 463
