"The pleasure of fiends": Degenerate Laughter in Stoker's Dracula

I wish to suggest that in order to study laughter in horror fiction we must move beyond the paradigm that equates laughter with comedy. As humour critic Marcel Gutwirth notes, "laughter is not all bounty: it has its dark, its killing side... violence of some degree may well be of its essence, t...

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Autor principal:	Mackenzie Bartlett
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	University of Edinburgh 2006
Materias:	Fine Arts N Language and Literature P
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/4af641eb82b64c5e9567d4d8a4981140
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:4af641eb82b64c5e9567d4d8a49811402021-11-23T09:46:01Z"The pleasure of fiends": Degenerate Laughter in Stoker's Dracula1749-9771https://doaj.org/article/4af641eb82b64c5e9567d4d8a49811402006-08-01T00:00:00Zhttp://www.forumjournal.org/article/view/559https://doaj.org/toc/1749-9771I wish to suggest that in order to study laughter in horror fiction we must move beyond the paradigm that equates laughter with comedy. As humour critic Marcel Gutwirth notes, "laughter is not all bounty: it has its dark, its killing side... violence of some degree may well be of its essence, though held in check" (8). I hope to demonstrate that the horror of what I will term "monstrous laughter" in a text like Bram Stoker's Dracula is that the violent "dark side" of laughter is very deliberately not held in check. Like a contagion, it is released indiscriminately upon the world, threatening to contaminate the hearers – and by extension the readers of the text – with the perverse perspective of the laughing villains who find humour in murder and mayhem.Mackenzie BartlettUniversity of EdinburgharticleFine ArtsNLanguage and LiteraturePENForum (2006)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Fine Arts N Language and Literature P
spellingShingle	Fine Arts N Language and Literature P Mackenzie Bartlett "The pleasure of fiends": Degenerate Laughter in Stoker's Dracula
description	I wish to suggest that in order to study laughter in horror fiction we must move beyond the paradigm that equates laughter with comedy. As humour critic Marcel Gutwirth notes, "laughter is not all bounty: it has its dark, its killing side... violence of some degree may well be of its essence, though held in check" (8). I hope to demonstrate that the horror of what I will term "monstrous laughter" in a text like Bram Stoker's Dracula is that the violent "dark side" of laughter is very deliberately not held in check. Like a contagion, it is released indiscriminately upon the world, threatening to contaminate the hearers – and by extension the readers of the text – with the perverse perspective of the laughing villains who find humour in murder and mayhem.
format	article
author	Mackenzie Bartlett
author_facet	Mackenzie Bartlett
author_sort	Mackenzie Bartlett
title	"The pleasure of fiends": Degenerate Laughter in Stoker's Dracula
title_short	"The pleasure of fiends": Degenerate Laughter in Stoker's Dracula
title_full	"The pleasure of fiends": Degenerate Laughter in Stoker's Dracula
title_fullStr	"The pleasure of fiends": Degenerate Laughter in Stoker's Dracula
title_full_unstemmed	"The pleasure of fiends": Degenerate Laughter in Stoker's Dracula
title_sort	"the pleasure of fiends": degenerate laughter in stoker's dracula
publisher	University of Edinburgh
publishDate	2006
url	https://doaj.org/article/4af641eb82b64c5e9567d4d8a4981140
work_keys_str_mv	AT mackenziebartlett thepleasureoffiendsdegeneratelaughterinstokersdracula
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"The pleasure of fiends": Degenerate Laughter in Stoker's Dracula

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