Jane Austen and Comedy

In bringing together Austen and comedy, which are both often dismissed as superfluous or irrelevant to a contemporary world, this collection of essays directs attention to the ways we laugh, the ways that Austen may make us do so, and the ways that our laughter is conditioned by the form in which Austen writes: comedy.

List of contents

Illustrations ... v

Abbreviations ... vi

Introduction: Austen and Comedy ... 1

Erin M. Goss

Part I. Comic Energy and Explosive Humor ... 27

One - Austen, Philosophy, and Comic Stylistics ... 28

Eric Lindstrom

Two - Jane Austen: Comedy Against Happiness ... 62

David Sigler

Three - "Open-Hearted": Persuasion and the Cultivation of Good Humor ... 95

Sean Dempsey

Part II. (Emma's) Laughter with a Purpose ... 121

Four - After the Laughter: Seeking Perfect Happiness in Emma ... 122

Soha Chung

Five - The Comic Visions of Emma Woodhouse ... 148

Timothy Erwin

Part III. Comedic Form, Comedic Effect ... 186

Six - On Austen, Comedy, and Future Possibility ... 187

Erin M. Goss

Seven - Lost in the Comedy: Austen's Paternalistic Men and the Problem of Accountability ...218

Michael Kramp

Eight - Sense, Sensibility, Sea Monsters, and Carnivalesque Caricature ... 248

Misty Krueger

Acknowledgments ... 272

Bibliography ... 273

Index ... 301

About the Contributors ... 302

About the author

ERIN GOSS is an associate professor of English at Clemson University in South Carolina. She is the author of Revealing Bodies: Anatomy, Allegory, and the Grounds of Knowledge in the Long Eighteenth Century (Bucknell University Press).

Summary

In bringing together Austen and comedy, which are both often dismissed as superfluous or irrelevant to a contemporary world, this collection of essays directs attention to the ways we laugh, the ways that Austen may make us do so, and the ways that our laughter is conditioned by the form in which Austen writes: comedy.

Product details

Authors	Erin Goss
Assisted by	Erin Goss (Editor)
Publisher	Rutgers University Press
Languages	English
Product format	Paperback / Softback
Released	30.04.2019
EAN	9781684480777
ISBN	978-1-68448-077-7
No. of pages	218
Series	Transits: Literature, Thought; Transits: Literature, Thought & Culture, 1650-1850; Transits: Literature, Thought
Subject	Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies

Product details

• Authors: Erin Goss
• Assisted by: Erin Goss (Editor)
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.04.2019
• EAN: 9781684480777
• ISBN: 978-1-68448-077-7
• No. of pages: 218
• Series: Transits: Literature, Thought; Transits: Literature, Thought & Culture, 1650-1850; Transits: Literature, Thought
• Subject: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies