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“There Ought to Be Clowns”: American Humor and Literary Naturalism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 July 2009
Extract
In 1882 Henry James wrote a review of Zola's Nana that criticized the French Naturalist because he lacked a sense of humor: “In the eyes of ‘naturalism’ enjoyment is a frivolous, a superficial, a contemptible sentiment.…. M. Zola disapproves greatly of wit; he thinks it is an impertinence in a novel, and he would probably disapprove of humor if he knew what it is.” And Zola, in “Naturalism in the Theatre,” was uncomplimentary about a leading playwright's comic scenes; he called Sardou a bad dramatist because “we never get anything except outrageously enlarged vaudeville skits, the comic force of which comes entirely from caricature.” Nevertheless, Zola suggested that a reader might “shudder or laugh” as long as the dramatist “disappears; … keeps his emotions to himself; … simply sets forth what he has seen.”
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References
NOTES
1. James, Henry, “Nana,” The Parisian, 02 26, 1880Google Scholar, conveniently reprinted in Becker, George J., ed., Modern Literary Realism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1963), pp. 237–38, 242CrossRefGoogle Scholar. More than two centuries earlier, Fielding had confronted the issue of “attempts to ridicule the blackest villainies, and, what is yet worse, the most dreadful calamities” in his Preface to Joseph Andrews (1742).Google Scholar
2. Zola, Emile, “Naturalism in the Theater,” Le Roman experimental (Paris: 1880)Google Scholar, reprinted in Becker, , Modern Literary Realism, pp. 200, 212.Google Scholar
3. Norris, Frank, “Zola as a Romantic Writer,” in Pizer, Donald, ed., The Literary Criticism of Frank Norris (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 1966), p. 71.Google Scholar
4. Derby, George Horatio, “Phoenix at Benecia,” in Bangs, John Kendrick, ed., Phoenixiana (New York: D. Appleton, 1903), pp. 281, 283.Google Scholar
5. Twain, Mark, “The Story of the Good Little Boy,” Sketches New and Old (Hartford, Conn.: 1875), p. 61.Google Scholar
6. Budd, Louis J., “Objectivity and Low Seriousness in American Naturalism,” Prospects 1 (New York: Burt Franklin, 1975), p. 42.Google Scholar
7. Freud, Sigmund, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, trans. Strachey, James (New York: W. W. Norton, 1960), pp. 228–29Google Scholar. Morton Gurewitch has discussed “sick humor,” which “does not so much exorcise dread and the fear of death as pander to a dehumanizing appetite for the macabre.” Comedy: The Irrational Vision (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press, 1975), pp. 100–01.Google Scholar
8. Field, Eugene, The Tribune Primer (Boston: Henry A. Dickerman & Son, 1900), pp. 12, 17, 94.Google Scholar
9. Dover Publications reissued Graham's verse in paperback in 1961 as Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes and More Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes.
10. Rezwin, Max, ed., The Best of Sick Jokes (New York: Pocket Books, 1962), p. 49Google Scholar. Graham's popularity in the United States, rather than his nationality, justifies his inclusion here. Of course, Dr. Heinrick Hoffman's Der Struwwelpeter, Carroll, Lewis, Lear, Edward, and Belloc, Hillaire, Bad Child's Book of Beasts (1896)Google Scholar and More Beasts for Worse Children (1897)Google Scholar, belong in the tradition, too.
11. Randolph, John W., The Apostle of the Devil (Nashville: Vanderbilt Univ. Press, 1941), p. 59.Google Scholar
12. Bierce, Ambrose, The Parenticide ClubGoogle Scholar and The Ocean Wave, conveniently reprinted in Barkin, George, ed., The Sardonic Humor of Ambrose Bierce (New York: Dover Publications, 1963).Google Scholar