Laughter, Literature, Violence, 1840–1930

Jonathan Taylor is Associate Professor at the University of Leicester, where he directs the MA in Creative Writing. He is an author, editor and lecturer, whose writing encompasses both critical and creative forms. His previous monographs are Mastery and Slavery in Victorian Writing (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), and Science and Omniscience in Nineteenth-Century Literature (2007). His creative work includes a memoir, Take Me Home (2007), the novel Melissa (2015), and the poetry collection Cassandra Complex (2018).

• 1. Preface: Allegories of Laughter. I. Comedy and Hybridity. II. Laughter and Annihilation.- 2. His ‘Last Jest’: On Laughter, Edgar Allan Poe and ‘Hop-Frog’. I. Comedy and Horror. II. Laughter and Democracy. III. Laughter and Leap-Frog.- 3. ‘Unseemly Levity’: On Memoirs, Humour and Edmund Gosse. I. Humour and Genre. II. Humour and Emotion. III. Humour and Text. IV. Humour and Beyond.- 4. ‘Perfect Laughter’: On War, Wyndham Lewis and The Wild Body. I. Laughter and Dualism. II. Laughter, Dualism and Bodies. III.  Laughter, Dualism, Bodies and Anarchism.- 5. Epilogue: ‘Derisive Laughter’: On Superiority, Katherine Mansfield and ‘Miss Brill’.

“In Laughter, Literature, Violence, 1840-1930 we see the convoluted relationship between laughter, violence, war, horror and death. … This is a text for the academic to help him or her to interrogate and to investigate and a book for the interested party, who enjoys the subject. Both are well served. It is not too academic to put off the casual reader, yet it has enough gravitas to educate and intrigue.” (Jon Wilkins, Everybody's Reviewing, Everybody's Reviewing, everybodysreviewing.blogspot.com, March 23, 2019)