Wayne State University Press Main PageWSU Press Main Page Wayne State University Press Wayne State University Main PageWayne State University Main Page
Africana StudiesAfricana Studies
Art and Art History
Classical StudiesFilm and Television Studies
Great Lakes Books Series / Regional InterestJournalsJewish Studies
Labor Studies and Urban Studies
Literature, Literary Theory, German Literary and Cultural Studies, Humor StudiesSpeech & Language Pathology

About WSU PressContact WSU Press
Frequently Asked Questions
 Book Information About the book Reviews
Comic Relief
Humor in Contemporary American Literature

Sarah Blacher Cohen 		The original essays in this unique collection form a body of work that is indispensable for critics and scholars interested in American literature of the 1960s and 1970s. Stimulating and engrossing, these studies provide a critical focus for literary humor.
Sixteen authorities on the various kinds, concerns, and practitioners of recent American humor analyze many kinds of humor in the major genres of fiction, poetry, and drama and explore the comic dimensions of leading individual writers, such as Saul Bellow and Cynthia Ozick. Cohen has selected works that gauge the impact of popular culture and urbanism on literary humor, treat the risible qualities of ethnic humor, assess the contributions of women to literary comedy, and emphasize the nature of regional humor. In addition, Cohen's expanded bibliography directs readers to the most up-to-date information available of humor.		 "This essay collection serves as an excellent introductory survey of the various comic forms employed in contemporary American literature, such as black comedy, ethnic humor, pop 'dreck' and the urban tall tale. Along the way the reader not only gains insight into the comic technique, but also a finer appreciation for the art of writers like Roth, Vonnegut, Bellow, Barthelme, and Nabokov."—Library Journal
 
Humor in Life and Letters Series

$22.95s paper / ISBN 0-81431915-7

356 pages

1992 (1978 by University of Illinois Press)