Comedy theory and the postmodern

Abstract

The “comic” and the “ironic” have been embraced by certain strands of contemporary literary theory as ambiguous, self-reflexive modes of expression that are particularly appropriate to the crisis of representation which characterizes the postmodern mood. This approach is implicitly based on an understanding of the comic as incongruity strategy and, following Freud, on the assumption that humor has important psychological functions. However, literary theory has been slow to integrate these two assumptions in an explicit manner and has not done enough to assimilate humor research in other areas of scholarship. Although the role of humor in interpersonal relationships is well documented in research in anthropology, linguistics or psychology, it is rarely applied systematically in analyses of the structural role of the comic in literary texts. At the same time, an over-reliance on the psychological dimensions of humor may produce a generalized approach that fails to take into account the specific nature of the comic as distinct from other modes of textual creativity. This can lead to a situation, typified by some postmodern criticism, in which the boundaries of the comic become undermined. This article critically examines theories by Susan Purdie, Jerry Flieger, and Jerry Palmer that exemplify some of these difficulties, but may also offer a means of conceiving of the comic in a more holistic manner.