published_or_final_version / Literary Studies / Master / Master of Arts

The Nose of Death considers the common matrix of the English scientific revolution and the modern English novel through the indicator of laughter. Whereas death is the paradigmatic object of laughter in the premodern period, animate or thinking matter is the prevailing object of laughter in modernity. The change is located in texts of the English baroque period from 1607 to 1767. Baroque discourse is defined by the language developed by writers loyal to both the Christian and the Copernican world views. Contradictory allegiances required them to institute a narratorial position based on simultaneous attachment to and detachment from a single point of view. This position is the defining feature of baroque discourse, the basis of both the perspective of modem science and the animation of multiple viewpoints in the modern novel. / The Nose of Death develops Walter Benjamin's reading of baroque "muting" and "fragmentation," processes that free matter, language, and time for alternative composition. The dissertation likewise adapts M. M. Bakhtin's account of the "grotesque method," considered as the approach to language and the human body that the modern "scientific method" posits itself against. This study treats baroque novelistic discourse in forgotten texts drawn from McGill's Redpath Tracts by Thomas Tomkis, Thomas D'Urfey, Tobias Swinden, and a selection of anonymously authored pamphlets. It considers, as well, two early medical works by Robert Boyle and Walter Charleton. Analogous fragments are similarly analyzed from three canonical works: Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, or The History of a Young Lady (1747--48), and Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1759--67).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Classics, 1987. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 266-273).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 187-200).

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The Histoire comique de Francion (1623--1633) of Charles Sorel marks a passage in the history of laughter, from the Renaissance to the classical period. Sorel defines the Histoire comique as a realistic genre by opposing it to the heroic, pastoral and burlesque genres. Whereas Rabelaisian works showed an ambivalent and carnivalesque laughter, the tone of Sorel's Francion is both satirical and univocal. The carnivalesque and popular traditions are mocked for the benefit of an elitist rationalism. The Francion shows a hero who distances himself from the popular culture to become a honnete homme. In order to respect the bienseances, laughter becomes spiritual, abstract and moderated. It attacks humans' ridiculous shortcomings instead of mocking the dominating classes as did the carnivalesque laughter in a debunking process. The polite laughter of the Francion distinguishes itself from the corporeal, excessive and regenerating laughter that one finds in Rabelais. The satire of Francion prepares for more serious endeavors.

This thesis studies the theme of laughter in the works of Victor Hugo, distinguishing two topical networks: that of perverse gaiety and that of forced laughter. Part One (La Gaiete perverse) shows how Hugo, drawing various commonplaces related to cruel laughter in the gothic novel, creates a first family of characters whose laugh derives from their demented nature (the monster, the headsman, the priest, the outlaw, the mob, the court jester). Part Two (La Tristesse des justes) concerns the Hugo which, between 1845 and 1862, fashions a mythology of the People renewing with commonplaces related to perverse gaiety, which he now links to characters seen as pillars of the Second Empire (the tyrant, the soldier, the police officer). While the wicked laugh, the just man cries, and the laughter of the oppressed (the convict, the prostitute, the street urchin) is constrained. Part Three (Le Rire de force) considers three works dating from Hugo's exile, including L'Homme qui rit, where the author clearly defines what constitutes forced laughter: a victim's exultation caused by the perversity of his social torturer, the tyrant. This transition from perverse gaiety (which stems from individual perversion) to forced laughter (the result of society's perversion) will be interpreted as the reflexion of a shift in the identity of Hugo's implied reader. While the first Hugo wrote about the people, the later Hugo aspires to write for the people, which considerably affects the meaning conferred to various commonplaces used throughout his writing career.

Bibliography: leaves 266-273 / 273 leaves ; 30 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Classics, 1987

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Divinity School, December 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 306-322). Also available on the Internet.