Playful and Serious: Philip Roth as a Comic Writer

by Ben Siegel (Editor), Jay L. Halio (Editor)

Overview

Few contemporary American writers have stirred the minds and emotions of their readers as Philip Roth has done. Even fewer writers have excelled in various forms of the comic as Roth has for over a half-century. Playful and Serious assembles a group of outstanding Roth scholars and critics who focus their attention on the different ways Roth brings his comic tendencies to bear on essentially serious topics. The term 'comic' is used in the broadest sense to include humor, irony, satire, comedy, black comedy, and their variations. As co-editor Ben Siegel points out, Roth's special humor often appears to grow 'more surrealistic and obsessive, as in each new fiction he tries not merely to surpass the daily news but to touch what is deeply private and dark in the modern psyche.' In the process, he targets 'his society's most deeply embedded pieties and hypocrisies, enthusiasms, and lunacies.' This collection takes account of the majority of Roth's works, beginning with some of his earliest stories and ending with several of his most recent novels. It also includes an account of several relatively neglected works, such as 'Novotny's Pain' and 'On the Air,' but the essays in this volume deal mainly with the major works of fiction.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611491470
Publisher:	University Press Copublishing Division
Publication date:	12/01/2009
Pages:	276
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Ben Siegel was professor of English at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.
Jay L. Halio is professor emeritus of English at the University of Delaware.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 7

Introduction Ben Siegel Jay L. Halio 11

A Comic Crisis of Faith: Philip Roth's "Conversion of the Jews" and "Eli, the Fanatic" Timothy Parrish 25

Philip Roth's Comic Realism in Goodbye, Columbus Victoria Aarons 35

Masturbation and Its Discontents; or, Serious Relief: Freudian Comedy in Portnoy's Complaint David Brauner 47

Affairs of the Breast: Philip Roth and David Kepesh Judith Yaross Lee 68

The Body in Shame: Philip Roth's Physical Comedy David Gilotta 92

Plots against America: Language and the Comedy of Conspiracy in Philip Roth's Early Fiction Derek Parker Royal 117

The Myths of Summer: Philip Roth's The Great American Novel Ben Siegel 133

Operation Shylock: The Double, the Comic, and the Quest for Identity Elaine Safer 152

Roth's Falstaff: Transgressive Humor in Sabbath's Theater Peter Scheckner 181

Sabbath's Complaint: Philip Roth's Black Comedy in Sabbath's Theater Gurumurthy Neelakantan 195

Deadly Farce in the Comedy of Philip Roth Jay L. Halio 208

The Human Stain: A Satiric Tragedy of the Politically Incorrect Sam Bluefarb 222

"To Endure and Go On": Comedy, Castration, and Phallus in Philip Roth's Exit Ghost James Mellard 229

Indignation: The Opiates of the Occident Alan Cooper 255

Notes on Contributors 269

Index 272