Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T01:52:15.977Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Kafka's Laughter: On Joy and the Kafkaesque

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Anca Parvulescu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In a letter Franz Kafka wrote to Felice Bauer in January 1913, he describes himself as a “great laugher.” Although Kafka is conventionally associated with anxiety, gloom, even terror, his laughter is joyful.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 130 , Issue 5: Special Topic: Emotions , October 2015 , pp. 1420 - 1432
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Adorno, Theodor. Prisms. Trans. Nicholsen, Shierry Weber and Weber, Samuel. Cambridge: MIT P, 1983. Print.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah. “Franz Kafka, Appreciated Anew.” Reflections on Literature and Culture. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2007. 94–109. Print.Google Scholar
Aristotle. Parts of Animals. Trans. Peck, A. L. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1961. PrintGoogle Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Trans. Iswolsky, Hélène. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1984. Print.Google Scholar
Baudelaire, Charles. “On the Essence of Laughter.” “The Painter of Modern Life” and Other Essays. Trans. Mayne, Jonathan. London: Phaidon, 1964. 147–65. Print.Google Scholar
Beller, Steven. Francis Joseph. London: Longman, 1996. Print.Google Scholar
Bergson, Henri. Laughter. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1956. Print.Google Scholar
Brod, Max. The Biography of Franz Kafka. Trans. Roberts, G. Humphreys. London: Secker, 1947. Print.Google Scholar
Brod, Max Franz Kafka. Eine Biographie. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1962. Print.Google Scholar
Calasso, Roberto. K. Trans. Brock, Geoffrey. New York: Knopf, 2005. Print.Google Scholar
Canetti, Elias. Kafka's Other Trial. Trans. Middleton, Christopher. New York: Schocken, 1974. Print.Google Scholar
Darwin, Charles. The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. London: John Murray, 1872. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, Diane. Breaking Up (at) Totality: A Rhetoric of Laughter. Southern Illinois UP: 2000. Print.Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles. Spinoza: Practical Philosophy. Trans. Robert Hurley. City Lights, 2001. Print.Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles, and Guattari, Félix. Kafka: Pour une littérature mineure. Paris: Minuit, 1975. Print.Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles, and Guattari, Félix Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature. Trans. Polan, Dana. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1986. Print.Google Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles, and Guattari, Félix What Is Philosophy? Trans. Tomlinson, Hugh and Burchell, Graham. New York: Columbia UP, 1996. Print.Google Scholar
Denta, Chris. “Sarah's Laughter: Kafka's Abraham.” Modernism / Modernity 15.2 (2008): 343–59. Print.Google Scholar
Descartes, René. The Passions of the Soul. Trans. Voss, Stephen. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1989. Print.Google Scholar
Dolar, Mladen. A Voice and Nothing More. Cambridge: MIT P, 2006. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elias, Norbert. The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations. Trans. Jephcott, Edmund. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000. Print.Google Scholar
Elias, Norbert “An Essay on Laughter.” 1956. MS. Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach.Google Scholar
Ellison, Ralph. “An Extravagance of Laughter.” Going to the Territory. New York: Vintage, 1995. 617–62. Print.Google Scholar
Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary: Provincial Life. Trans. Aveling, Eleanor Marx and Man, Paul de. Ed. Cohen, Margaret. New York: Norton: 2005. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freud, Sigmund. Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. Trans. Strachey, James. New York: Norton, 1990. Print.Google Scholar
Freud, Sigmund Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten. Leipzig: F. Deuticke, 1905. Print.Google Scholar
Gallop, Jane. Anecdotal Theory. Durham: Duke UP, 2002. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City: Doubleday, 1959. Print.Google Scholar
Göktürk, Deniz. “Jokes and Butts: Can We Imagine Humor in a Global Public Sphere?” PMLA 123.5 (2008): 1707–11. Print.Google Scholar
Hobbes, Thomas. The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Vol. 4. Ed. William Molesworth. London: John Bohn, 1839. Print.Google Scholar
Janouch, Gustav. Conversations with Kafka. Trans. Rees, Goronwy. London: Quartet, 1985. Print.Google Scholar
Kafka, Franz. Briefe an Felice und andere Korrespondenz aus der Verlobungszeit. New York: Schocken, 1967. Print.Google Scholar
Kafka, Franz The Castle. Trans. Bell, Anthea. New York: Oxford UP, 2009. Print.Google Scholar
Kafka, Franz The Complete Stories. New York: Schocken, 1995. Print.Google Scholar
Kafka, Franz Letters to Felice. Ed. Heller, Erich and Born, Jürgen. Trans. Stern, James and Duckworth, Elisabeth. New York: Schocken, 1973. Print.Google Scholar
Kafka, Franz Letter to His Father / Briefe an den Vater. Trans. Kaiser, Ernst and Wilkins, Eithne. Bilingual ed. New York: Schocken, 1966. Print.Google Scholar
Kafka, Franz Das Schloß. New York: Schocken, 1982. Print.Google Scholar
Kafka, Franz The Trial. Trans. Mitchell, Breon. New York: Schocken, 1998. Print.Google Scholar
Kundera, Milan. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. Trans. Heim, Michael. New York: Penguin, 1986. Print.Google Scholar
Kurz, Gerhard. “Nietzsche, Freud, and Kafka.” Reading Kafka: Prague, Politics, and the Fin de Siècle. Trans.Google Scholar
Neil Donahue. Ed. Mark Anderson. New York: Schocken, 1989. 128–48. Print.Google Scholar
Macherey, Pierre. A Theory of Literary Production. Trans. Wall, Geoffrey. London: Routledge, 2006. Print.Google Scholar
Mailloux, Peter. A Hesitation before Birth: The Life of Franz Kafka. Newark: U of Delaware P, 1989. Print.Google Scholar
Murad, Anatol. Franz Joseph I of Austria and His Empire. New York: Twayne, 1968. Print.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Also Sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen. Stuttgart: Kröner, 1964. Print.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich The Genealogy of Morals. Trans. Golffing, Francis. Garden City: Doubleday Anchor, 1956. Print.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich Jenseits von Gut und Böse zur Genealogie der Moral. Stuttgart: Kröner, 1953. Print.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, Friedrich Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None. Trans. Kaufman, Walter. New York: Modern Lib., 1995. Print.Google Scholar
Parvulescu, Anca. Laughter: Notes on a Passion. Cambridge: MIT P, 2010. Print.Google Scholar
Prodger, Phillip. Darwin's Camera: Art and Photography in the Theory of Evolution. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. Print.Google Scholar
Scholem, Gershom. The Correspondence of Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem, 1932-1940. Trans. Smith, Gary and Lefevere, André. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1992. Print.Google Scholar
Schuster, Aaron. “Philosophy of Complaint.” The Object of Comedy Conf. Jan Van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, 8 Mar. 2012. Address.Google Scholar
Screech, M. A. Laughter at the Foot of the Cross. London: Penguin, 1997. Print.Google Scholar
Sokel, Walter H. The Myth of Power and the Self: Essays on Franz Kafka. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2002. Print.Google Scholar
Suchoff, David. Kafka's Jewish Languages: The Hidden Openness of Tradition. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2012. Print.
Vardoulakis, Dimitris. “Kafka's Empty Law: Laughter and Freedom in The Trial.” Philosophy and Kafka. Ed. Moran, Brendan and Salzani, Carlo. Lanham: Lexington, 2013. Print.Google Scholar
Wagner, Benno. “Kafka's Office Writings: Historical Background and Institutional Setting.” Franz Kafka: The Office Writings. Ed. Corngold, Stanley, Greenberg, Jack, and Wagner. Trans. Patton, Eric and Hein, Ruth. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2009. 19–48. Print.Google Scholar
Wallace, David Foster. “Consider the Lobster” and Other Essays. New York: Little, 2006. Print.Google Scholar
Weber, Samuel. “Laughter in the Meanwhile.” Modern Language Notes 102 (1987): 691–706. Print.Google Scholar
Zischler, Hanns. Kafka Goes to the Movies. Trans. Gillespie, Susan H. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2003. Print.Google Scholar