Humor in Modern American Poetry - by Rachel Trousdale (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Modern poetry, at least according to the current consensus, is difficult and often depressing. But as Humor in Modern American Poetry shows, modern poetry is full of humorous moments, from comic verse published in popular magazines to the absurd juxtapositions of The Cantos. The essays in this collection show that humor is as essential to the serious work of William Carlos Williams as it is to the light verse of Phyllis McGinley. For the writers in this volume, the point of humor is not to provide "comic relief, +? a brief counterpoint to the poem's more serious themes; humor is central to the poems' projects. These poets use humor to claim their own poetic authority; to re-define literary tradition; to show what audience they are writing for; to make political attacks; and, perhaps most surprisingly, to promote sympathy among their readers.

The essays in this book include single-author studies, discussions of literary circles, and theories of form. Taken together, they help to begin a new conversation about modernist poetry, one that treats its lighthearted moments not as decorative but as substantive. Humor defines groups and marks social boundaries, but it also leads us to transgress those boundaries; it forges ties between the writer and the reader, blurs the line between public and private, and becomes a spur to self-awareness.

Review Quotes

It is often said that the last sense we lose is our sense of humor. We certainly laugh before we speak. While theories of laughter date back to Plato, no one theory can account for its importance to us and our repeated failure to treat it seriously. This collection of essays makes a giant leap in the right direction. It analyses humor not as a side effect from the so-called main business of modernist poetics, but as one of modern poetry's most significant concerns. Importantly, it suggests that humor has an ethical and political dimension, encouraging modern poets (and readers of modern poetry) to escape, ridicule and reject what Rachel Trousdale in the introduction rightly calls 'the humorless, realist pressure to arrive at a single answer to complex questions.'
Jonathan Ellis, Reader in American Literature, University of Sheffield, UK

The essays in this collection not only demonstrate how unexpectedly funny modern and contemporary American poetry can be, but persuasively show how humor is integral to the aesthetics and ethics of much 20th-century verse. Bolstered by consistently fine close readings, these essays invite one to rethink the priorities of key figures from Pound and Moore to Ashbery and Merrill, and refocus our attention on some writers, like Phyllis McGinley, who have largely been forgotten. In Rachel Trousdale's cogent and wide-ranging introduction, and in the best of these pieces, this collection begins to challenge some of our basic premises about how comedy itself works. A useful and provocative book.
David Rosen, Professor of English, Trinity College, USA

The ten essays cover a lot of ground ... In each case, the humor of the poetics challenges the philosophical and psychological assumptions about humor. The poetics of humor connects the individual, the interpersonal, and the collective, and serves as the basis of shared values, insight, and originality. The arrangement of the essays allows the reader to revisit a larger discussion of modern American poetry and its scope and range. The collection is also timely as it exposes the need for both humor and poetry in these humorless times. Summing Up: Recommended.
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About the Author

Rachel Trousdale is Assistant Professor of English at Framingham State University, USA. She is the author of Nabokov, Rushdie, and the Transnational Imagination: Novels of Exile and Alternate Worlds (2010).