All Puns Intended: The Verbal Creation of Jean-Pierre Brisset

ISBN-13: 9781900755528 / Angielski / Miękka / 2001 / 198 str.

Walter Redfern

Opis

Nineteenth-century France spawned numerous 'fous littEraires', one of the most fascinating being Jean-Pierre Brisset (1837-1919). An individualist par excellence, he dismantled the existing French tongue, reshaping it to suit his own grandiose purpose, which was that of explaining the development of human beings from frogs and of their language from croaks. Continuous and ubiquitous punning was a unique feature of his writing. In this study, Walter Redfern examines such themes as the nature of literary madness, the phenomenon of deadpan humour, the role of analogy, and the place of institutional religion in Brisset's inventive rewriting of the Creation.

Spis treści

Bare Bones; Proem; 1: The Motivating Force: Etymology; 2: Frogs on Frogs; 3: Creation Myths; 4: God and Company; 5: Language and Tongues; 6: The Sexual Imperative; 7: Methods in his Madness; 8: The Play of Language; 9: Varieties of Madness; 10: Seriously Funny; 11: Heading for the Last Round-Up; The Last Round-Up

O autorze

Walter Redfern