Poe’s Fiction: Romantic Irony in the Gothic Tales. By G. R. Thompson.  Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 1973. 254 pp. $12.50.

Virtually every careful reader of Poe’s fiction has been perplexed, at some time, by Poe’s seemingly relentless determination to write a funny story. Why the author of "Ligeia" and "The Fall of the House of Usher" bothered to write "Three Sundays in a Week" is more than most scholars can satisfactorily demonstrate. Though he does not once mention "Three Sundays in a Week," G. R. Thompson puts forward, in Poe’s Fiction, a provocative new theory that seeks to reconcile the comic and Gothic sides of Poe’s work. Viewing Poe’s artistic method in the context of a particular literary tradition—German Romantic irony—Thompson asserts that behind virtually all of Poe’s Gothic tales is a "deceptive tripleness: his tales are supernatural on one level, psychological on another, satiric and ironic on another." Thompson’s thesis is frankly controversial; it not only challenges long-held assumptions about the nature of Poe’s "serious" fiction, but also projects, indirectly, a fundamentally new understanding of Poe the man and writer. In his preface, Thompson ingenuously suggests that his intention has not been "to discredit all those readers who have responded seriously to the sinister, occult element’ in Poe." Yet the book itself continually portrays such readers as the "dupes" of Poe’s narrative duplicity, because they have failed to perceive the slyly insinuated satire present in the stories. It is hardly surprising that Poe’s Fiction has been met with skepticism by more traditional critics; no one enjoys being told, even by implication, that he has been a "dupe."

What Thompson manages to prove, though, is that Poe was an ironist of considerable subtlety and versatility and that his ironic vision has as its philosophical basis the vital question of epistemology. The ambivalence of meaning in the tales finally corresponds to Poe’s own awareness of the ultimate incomprehensibility of human experience. Whether Poe derived this stance from the Romantic ironists is another matter. Thompson adduces a good deal of background information on the German group and shows how their theories led to a half-serious, half-comic "transcendental irony." But evidence of Poe’s firsthand knowledge of their writing is skimpy. Much weight is placed on the fact that an 1835 review by Poe echoes comments made in A. W. Schlegel’s Lectures (an important statement of Romantic irony); but Poe was an inveterate rummager for digested wisdom, constantly ransacking sources for names to drop and ideas to flaunt, temporarily. Poe did confess Schlegel’s influence in connection with the doctrine of "single effect," but his acquaintance with, and acceptance of, the concept of Romantic irony is nowhere explicitly acknowledged.

However problematical the historical framework of Poe is Fiction may be, Thompson’s discussion of such tales as "The Premature Burial," "Eleonora," and "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains" establishes the fact

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that Poe enjoyed playing intellectual games with his reader. The surface tale of Gothic horror often conceals an authorial mockery directed at the conventions of the Gothic tale, at the reader, and at the writer himself. The Poe who emerges from Thompson’s study is a sneering, jeering fellow, supremely rational and conscious of his intellectual superiority; he is the irrepressible joker, not the morbid, melancholy "Raven" portrayed in the biographies. For the most part, Thompson seems to be right about Poe; his readings uncover a good deal of satire, burlesque, parody, hoax, and irony that was not seen previously—or at least not seen in any systematic view of Poe’s work.

But the balancing act Thompson undertakes is not entirely successful; the "tripleness" he wishes us to see in Poe’s fiction simple does not pervade every Gothic tale. "The Fall of the House of Usher" is a case in point, for here Thompson’s insistence on the mocking irony of the narrator’s unreliability in effect collapses the "supernatural" meaning of the tale. Unless we see the narrator as a rational, fairly reliable observer struggling to maintain reason in the face of irrational sensation, the weird influences connected with the house reduce to mere fancies shared by Usher and his guest. But in order to show that the story fits his pattern, Thompson is forced to argue that the narrator is only "apparently" rational, that he in fact is as superstitious and irrational as Usher himself. Such a reading denies, it seems to me, the fascinating inner conflict of the narrator, who searches desperately for a way to explain his feelings of dread in rational terms. Throughout Poe ~v Fiction, the supernatural interpretation typically receives only a passing, patronizing consideration, for Thompson’s chief task is to reveal the ubiquitous mockery and satire behind the supposedly serious Gothic tales. Thus, even as Thompson insists on the ambivalence of Poe’s ironic vision, he removes much of that ambivalence by regularly undercutting the supernaturalistic view of the narratives

Though Thompson perhaps strains his thesis unnecessarily by refusing to admit that some of the Gothic tales simply possess a doubleness, rather than a "tripleness," he has nonetheless introduced a valuable "new way of reading Poe"—one that seems destined to be the focal point of critical debate for years to come. For if the implications of Thompson’s study are accepted, a thorough reassessment of Poe’s art and his position in our literature is required. In defining the nature of Poe’s ironic weltanschauung, Thompson discovers a view startlingly similar to contemporary absurdist thought: "The universe created in Poe’s fiction is one in which the human mind tries vainly to perceive order and meaning. The universe is deceptive; its basic mode seems to be an almost constant shifting of appearances; reality is a flux variously interpreted, or even created, by the individual human mind." The mocking perversity of the universe is, as Thompson demonstrates, mirrored in the deceptive, intentionally flawed surfaces of Poe’s Gothic tales. Though Thompson’s

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book is not without flaws of its own, Poe’s Fiction demands serious attention, for it illuminates an aspect of Poe’s creative achievement that has been long overlooked.

LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY                              J. Gerald Kennedy

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In view of the clarity of the overall argument in this book and the thought-provoking analyses within it, it seems ungracious to speak of improvements it might have. Wisse does not, however, finally dispel the mystery of the Americanization of the schlemiel: why did this figure of "ironic accommodation" appeal both to Jew and non-Jew so soon after the second world war? Could it really be that America was for the first time beginning "to experience itself as a ‘loser’ "? Perhaps Wisse will reconsider these matters in her second book. Then, too, she might have reason to revise her strong preference for Bellow’s moral earnestness over the punning wit of Malamud or the black humor of Roth. Finally, more consideration should be shown to the question of how the classic schlemiel is related to the anti-heroes of Joyce, Kafka, West, and Bruce Jay Friedman; also warranting attention are several other authors whom Wisse does not mention—Salinger, Heller, and such non-Jewish writers as Gogol, Chekhov, Beckett, and Updike. Even then there would remain the rich, and richly amusing, area of pop culture with performers like Woody Allen, Joan Rivers, and—believe it or not—Kinky Friedman and his Texas Jew Boys, with their hit record Sold American.

SOUTHWEST TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY          Clifford J. Ronan

The Humor of the American Cowboy. By Stan Hoig. Illustrated by Nick Eggenhofer. 1958. Reprint. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. [1970.] 193 pp. $1.75.

In a period which enjoys a nostalgia for times of the past, Stan Hoig’s The Humor of the American Cowboy should find a ready audience. The collector’s main intention is to provide examples of cowboy humor for those unfamiliar with it. And while there is no attempt to explore the typical cowboy personality in toto, sparkling flashes of wit do illuminate parts of that personality.

The book, a reprint, was first published in 1958 by Caxton Printers. The work derives mostly from secondary sources, and a lapse of sixteen years has done little to diminish the quality of the subject matter. No additional material has been supplied for this issue.

Ten chapters of approximately equal length make up the volume. The first chapter, "Laugh Kills Lonesome," is a good introductory essay showing the place of humor in the everyday life of the American cowboy. Subsequent chapters deal with various aspects of the cowboy’s life, such as his hostile environment, his animals, his food, and his attitude toward outsiders invading his territory.

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Originating primarily from a realistic view of the round of life on the frontier, the humor is vividly reflected in the cowboy’s views of the laws which bind him and courtship. One anecdote demonstrating the Southwesterner’s contempt for formal law forces concerns a cattle auctioneer who was called as a witness in court. Like most auctioneers, then and now, he was known by the honorary title of "Colonel." The prosecuting attorney was making little headway in demolishing the colonel’s testimony, so he resorted to sarcasm.

Equally pointed was the cowboy’s approach to romancing. An old-timer showered a good deal of attention on the son of a widow and became quite friendly with the boy. When asked his motivation, the oldster replied:

"Wal, it’s been my experience that when you teach the calf to lead, the old cow will follow."

While culled from some sixty books and articles, the stories, tall tales, yarns, and anecdotes that make up this volume are still as fresh as the countryside after a rain. The punchers learned to laugh at the known dangers and pleasures of life faced by any man, regardless of time or place, and they couched their humorous observations on the capriciousness of fate in an aphoristic style. Hoig’s book captures this style of the American cowboy’s humor. The text is illustrated with twenty-four Nick Eggenhofer drawings.

One small omission in the book’s format might be mentioned. Although there are ample footnote references, there is no bibliography. The Bison Press (University of Nebraska) is to be commended for reprinting this volume (as well as many others of Western Americana), and when another issue is planned, perhaps this omission can be rectified.

Finally, most excerpts in this gathering are from other collections or anthologies written by cowboys themselves. It would have been interesting had examples of humor from creative literature dealing with cowboy material been included. But perhaps this is asking something of the book beyond its scope. It could be a starting place for future studies of the humor of the American cowboy.

SOUTHWEST TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY            Donald L. Clarke

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Veins of Humor. Edited by Harry Levin. (Harvard English Studies 3.) Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1972. viii, 284 pp. $11.00.

Quite obviously in close agreement with Louis Cazamian’s belief that humor had "best be studied in the widest possible context," Harry Levin has put together a volume which he calls "an extremely miscellaneous collection of critical essays." It is, at least, that. Levin’s own essay, the introduction, attempts a definition and a characterization of humor by providing a brief historical account of what it has meant to those who have treated it previously, both practitioners and critics. Some discussion is given to the national characters of humor, particularly the German, French, and English, and to the fact that, for the most part, definitions and descriptions have been inconclusive because the subject itself has continued to change its shape. The introduction, indeed the whole collection, is proof of Saul Steinberg’s observation, "Trying to define humor is one of the definitions of humor."

The second essay, "On Pirandello’s Humorism," seems out of place because the remainder of the collection deals primarily with British and American humor. In it, Dante Della Terza analyzes Pirandello’s "L’Umorismo" (1908), pointing out that it is the "point of convergence of Pirandello’s meditation on art," and then, in turn, he uses that knowledge—that "humorism, the only form of art in which he is truly interested, is . . . the only one ready to open the door of the creative process to reflection"—as a key to Pirandello’s later writings. At this point the essay no longer seems out of place: it serves, by extension, much the same relationship to the other essays in the collection as it does to the later writings of Pirandello; it opens the door.

The next seven "miscellaneous" essays focus on various aspects of British literature and humor: "Humor in the Ulster Saga" by John V. Kelleher, "The Gloomy Chaucer" by Morton W. Bloomfield, "Marlowe’s Schadenfreude: Barabas as Comic Hero" by Erich Segal, "Swift’s ‘Rules of Raillery’" by John M. Bullitt, "De Quincey: Humor and the Drugs" byJean-Jacques Mayoux, "Dickens and Gogol: Energies of the Word" by Donald Fanger, and "Victorian Harlequin: The Function of Humor in Thackeray’s Critical and Miscellaneous Prose" by Robert Kiely. Without exception these essays are perceptive, incisive, and informative.

The remaining essays deal with American literature, and like the preceding, they are as enlightening as they are varied. Overall they are perhaps slightly less significant, but they are generally more interesting than the studies of British literature because they include both a wider range and a greater variety of topics. This comprehensiveness, no doubt, also accounts for the lack of uniformly high quality which is so apparent in the first group, but two of these latter essays are of exceptional merit. The first, "Transcendental Antics," is a masterly wrought study suggesting "the lighthearted approach to Transcendentalism may be one of the best,

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as well as one of the most pleasant, ways to understand it." The Transcendentalists themselves serve Joel Porte as the best proof of his thesis. The second, "‘A Man’s Voice, Speaking’: A Continuum in American Humor" by Walter Blair, is perhaps the most significant essay in the collection, certainly so in the American humor section. It is a basic, comprehensive, detailed explanation of how and why the framework narratives and mock oral tales of the nineteenth century have not only survived but maintained their wide popularity since the turn of the century, illustrating decade by decade and author by author the developments and changes in the tradition.

Although quite well done in every respect, "The Titanic Toast" by Bruce Jackson and "Jewish Humor and the Domestication Myth" by Robert Alter are the weakest pieces of the volume. The fault is not in the work but rather in the topics. The toast, "a genre of oral narrative poetry" not even widely known in black folklore itself, and Jewish humor are so limited in scope and so esoteric in nature that even the best that can be said about them will have less than startling effects. In its limited way, however, "The Titanic Toast" is equally as informative as any other selection. "Jewish Humor and the Domestication of Myth" is more significant.

"The ‘Negro Everyman’ and His Humor" by Robert Rosenblatt, "The Edge of Laughter: Some Modern Fiction and the Grotesque" by W. M. Frohock, and "Humour noir and Black Humor" by Matthew Winston are serviceable treatments of interesting and moderately difficult subject that have long needed incisive explication. They are noteworthy additions to the book. All in all, Veins of Humor is easily one of the most important critical books about humor to appear in several years. The sixteen essays are scholarly, informative, and enjoyable, and a couple are destined to be minor classics.

SOUTHWEST TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY         Jack Meathenia

Comic Terror: The Novels of John Hawkes. By Donald J. Greiner. Memphis, Tenn.: Memphis State University Press. 1973. 280 pp. $7.50

The publication of Donald J. Greiner’s book length study of John Hawkes’ novels is welcome. Greiner has written a critical work which was long overdue. In his own words, "readers who pride themselves on a knowledgeable awareness of recent trends in fiction either dismiss [Hawkes’] work as too difficult or ignore his comic vision to stress his truly grotesque horrors. In most cases, however, he remains unknown and unread." Undoubtedly Greiner is correct, as is Leslie Fiedler, who asserts that Hawkes is "the least read novelist of substantial merit in the United States."

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Comic Terror is well documented and contains a careful accounting of relevant published criticism. The various critical attitudes of the past toward Hawkes’ works are interwoven into each area of Greiner’s investigation of the forms and styles of the eight novels, which are first examined collectively, then separately from the first, Chiavari, to the latest, The Blood Oranges. Greiner is obviously concerned that his analyses not depart radically from past judgment; with care, he begins discussion of a topic or with a sytematic recital of numerous well-known evaluations of Hawkes his works, and theories of fiction. Thus, as a discriminating collection of past criticism, Greiner’s work has value.

Comic Terror is also very well-written. The contents are organized in a simple and clear fashion, moving from an introductory general chapter into separate chapters devoted to novels examined as individual units; a concluding chapter briefly summarizes. Greiner’s prose is smooth and logical, without being exceedingly pedantic or boring; the style displays a high level of rational perspective which is, like the study itself, welcome, since Hawkes, as an experimentalist, has been subjected to substantial impressionistic assessment.

Another welcome aspect of Comic Terror is the inclusion of plot summaries in the discussion of each novel. Hawkes is an innovative writer, much in the vein of Joyce and Faulkner, and it does help, in the attainment of a greater aesthetic apprehension of his works, to know what is happening on the level of plot. However, as Hawkes has stated, plot is one of the "true enemies of the novel" and should therefore be dismissed once understood.

In his introductory chapter, entitled "Technique and Comedy in Hawkes’ Novels," Greiner succeeds in placing Hawkes within a tradition of comedy from which Hawkes has departed and to which Hawkes has contributed. Greiner gives a clear account of Hawkes’ place in twentieth-century comic literature:

Greiner attempts, through the work of Hawkes and black humorists such as Barnes, West, and O’Connor, to derive an applicable theory of contemporary comic fiction. He concludes that "modem comedy . . . functions to expose evil, not the kind of human inadequacy which in traditional comedy is a deviation from a norm, but the very real evil which generates violence and which threatens to annihilate those eternal verities—love, communication, and sympathy—so treasured by Hawkes."

On the other hand, Greiner’s introductory chapter is a dismal failure in its inadequate examination of specific devices by which Hawkes achieves his unique and important techniques. Other than oblique and clich6d references to thwarted expectations, shifting points of view, and poetic verbal patterns, Greiner does little in the way of truly analyzing, on a technical level, the fiction of Hawkes. This failure, plus the following, seriously damages a critical work which could have done much toward creating a more wide-spread knowledge and appreciation of this "avant-garde" novelist.

In Comic Terror, Greiner has also failed to discuss properly Hawkes’ place as a technical innovator in any literary tradition beyond that of his immediate contemporaries. Two short references to Faulkner do little toward providing a connection which has been acknowledged by Hawkes and which is essential to the understanding that this novelist is not creating in vacuo. In addition, the omission of any reference to James Joyce, whose techniques of leitmotif and spatial structuring obviously have great relevance to the fiction of Hawkes, is a sin in itself Hawkes is a unique writer, but also is cognizant of and fictionally displays many traditional techniques, as well as themes, the awareness of which is essential to a full understanding of his novels.

The final inadequacy I find in Comic Terror is perhaps purely personal, but Greiner’s virtue of a rational perspective also seems a vice; his discussion lacks the boldness of thought necessary to penetrate and communicate the true tone and texture of "comic terror" in the novels of Hawkes. The style tends to skim over the surface and intellectually abstract the elements in the novels which are, in themselves, perverse enough without further perversion being applied in an attempt to bring them under a foreign control.

TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY                                     J. J. Johnson

The Comic Imagination in American Literature. Edited by Louis D. Rubin, Jr. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press. 1973. xii, 430 pp. Index. $12.50

A survey of the bookshelf of critical studies of American humor leaves one amazed at how few worthwhile efforts have been made fully to explore or assess the place of the comic muse in the national literary heritage. The first truly sound and comprehensive effort was contained in

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Walter Blair’s standard critical anthology Native American Humor (1937, revised 1960), a study designed as an introduction to the texts but taking up over one-third of the total page count. This seminal essay, with its fulsome footnotes and generous bibliography, served for several decades as the source and inspiration for countless studies of individual humorists and movements, but not until Jesse Bier’s The Rise and Fall of American Humor (1968) did a single critic undertake a full-scale assessment. Though broad in its grasp and useful for its comments on the connections between humor in literature and the mass media, the response to Bier’s work was less than enthusiastic because of its thesis-ridden approach and somewhat gloomy conclusion about the state of contemporary comedy.

While The Comic Imagination in American Literature is the fortunate by-product of other intentions, one of its ultimate virtues is that in effect it provides a fresh and sensible critical survey of the whole development of humor in American letters. Each of the book’s thirty-two chapters was originally prepared as a talk for a Forum series to be broadcast over the Voice of America to overseas audiences. The fact that they had to be directed to a general audience and had to be free of scholarly terminology and footnotes has not decreased the originality and critical integrity of most of these papers one whit. In fact, many of them illustrate how beautifully informative and stimulating criticism can be when intentionally directed to the average reader rather than the academy. A few of the papers, of course, traverse well-trodden territory and function only as succinct summaries of the body of established opinion and knowledge, which in itself can be valuable, yet others do so much more than that. Behind the contributions of Lewis Leary, for example, on Benjamin Franklin, Washington Irving, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, lies the visible evidence of a lifetime of scholarly authority and research. Yet he so skillfully absorbs that knowledge, weaves it into a pattern of critical insight uniquely his own, and sensitively couches it in a style so eminently reasonable and humanely witty, that his essays become themselves fine examples of literary art.

Louis D. Rubin, Jr., who coordinated the series, outlined the topics, and selected the speakers, has touched on all the major figures, periods, movements, and modes of humor in American letters. In addition to the Franklin, Irving, and Holmes essays by Leary, there are discussions of Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville by Hennig Cohen, Twain by James M. Cox, James by George Core, Bierce by Jay Martin, Mencken by editor Rubin, Cabell and Barth by W. L. Godshalk, Caldwell by Robert D. Jacobs, Faulkner by Jacobs, Welty by Seymour L. Gross, and Flannery O’Connor and Walker Percy by Walter Sullivan. In chronological fashion, the important periods, groups, and regions are covered: early American comedy by Louis B. Wright, the early national wits by Lewis P. Simpson, Yankee humor by Cecil D. Eby, humor of the Old Southwest by James M. Cox, the misspellers by Brom Weber, minstrels by Blyden Jackson, humor in local color writing by Arlin Turner, rural humor by C. Carroll Hollis, the

Chicago humorists by Bernard Duffey, the New Yorker writers by Gerald Weales, Mid-Western humor by C. Hugh Holman, light verse poets by Morris Bishop, the Harlem Renaissance by Blyden Jackson, Jewish humor by Alien Guttmann, Afro.American comedy by Richard K. Barksdale, the school of "black humor" by Brom Weber, and "anti-fiction" in American humor by William Harmon. Very little in the literary line is not touched on in one way or another by the twenty-four critics selected from among the best in the field.

In his introductory and concluding essays, editor Rubin makes out a splendid case for his belief that "The American literary imagination has from its earliest days been at least as much comic in nature as tragic." In seeking the basic thread which provides continuity to the American comic tradition, he finds it in the incongruity between national expectation and experience:

Satire and ridicule, the clash of cultures, incongruity between word and deed, these have been indeed the concerns of American comedians, and if they appear overly broad in implication, they do offer workable labels for pulling oneself out of the mire of theory about the nature of comedy and its social and cultural functions.

It would be easy to take issue with some of the assumptions and opinions of the individual contributors. I will do so with only one statement, mainly because it appears in the first paragraph of the first essay, where Louis B. Wright says, "The early settlers were a serious people struggling to establish themselves in a wilderness and they had little time for polite letters or for literature of sheer entertainment. Humorous writings intended merely to amuse are a product of a leisured and sophisticated society." I would think at this point in literary history, in view of the part comedy has played in the modern cultural and popular imagination, that we could begin to discard the notion that amusement and entertainment is something "mere." The art of effective comedy is no less demanding than the art of tragedy, except that we don’t have Plato’s

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definitive opinion to go by and it’s a more slippery fish to catch among theoreticians. Rubin neatly summarizes the odd verbal gymnastics behind the general assumptions about the propriety of humor:

The idea that people involved in serious and difficult circumstances have no time for humor must also be questioned. Aren’t hard times the best times for comedy? Don’t people laugh more in times of stress? Isn’t this what lies behind the comedy of Bierce, the late Twain, Southwestern humor, "black humor," the Jewish and Afro-American comedy of survival? In an Associated Press release just the other day, columnist Bob Thomas quoted Bob Hope on the reactions of audiences to comedians during 1973, one of the nation’s worst years politically and economically: "When world events are more dramatic and people are on edge, they seem to want the release of laughter. I found that my best audiences in war zones were the soldiers who were nearest the front."

To become involved in further disagreements at this point would be needless, since one of the book’s best services will be to inspire such debate and contribute to the clarification of one of the nation’s richest areas of literary accomplishment. It is a valuable compilation and should serve us well, at least until and perhaps beyond the projected history of American humor being written by Walter Blair and Hamlin Hill.

VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY        M. Thomas Inge

NEWS, NOTES & QUERIES

As a service to subscribers, STUDIES IN AMERICAN HUMOR will publish in this section announcements concerning new research, work in progress, completed studies, or any other information anyone wishes to make available. Since space is limited, announcements should be kept as brief as possible. Address all communications to the editor.

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Several subscribers have expressed interest in holding a seminar in American humor at the annual MLA meeting. Inquiries and preliminary plans are already underway. Comments are invited from subscribers concerning both the desirability and feasibility of such a meeting. Should such an annual seminar become a reality, a possible fourth issue of the journal might be published to record the proceedings. Further information will be given in the fail issue.

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M. Thomas Inge (Virginia Commonwealth Univ.) and Lawrence Mintz (Univ. of Maryland) are tentatively planning publication of a newsletter treating humor in all media other than literature: movies, t.v., comics. Anyone interested in this project may contact Professor Inge, Virginia Commonwealth Univ., Richmond, Va. 23220.

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STUDIES IN AMERICAN HUMOR is slowly building a reference library of significant books related to the study of American humor. Anyone having such books that are no longer wanted is asked to contribute them to the journal library. Older and out of print books are especially desirable. Obviously a scholarly journal does not have funds to purchase reference books and materials, but they would be an invaluable aid to our work.

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Special issues are being planned for a Bicentennial commemorative volume (III) in 1976. Suggestions for topics, scholars to treat them, and manuscripts are requested. Manuscripts intended for consideration for the commemorative volume should have notes accompanying them to indicate special handling.

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The editor of STUDIES IN AMERICAN HUMOR is compiling a list of colleges and universities that offer courses in American humor. Teachers of such courses are asked to send in information regarding such offerings, including reading lists, syllabi, and comments about special topics.

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A few suggestions for special issue topics have been received. All are welcome. More are desired. Scholars having projects underway related to the following topics are invited to submit them for consideration: female humorists, political humor, Yiddish humor, theory of humor, colonial humor, trends in humor, psychology of humor, western (cowboy) humor. Special issues may be devoted to a single topic, an individual writer, or a particular book, so suggestions may cover a wide range.