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English Literature | Vol. 5 | December 2018

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Research Article

The Fear of Laughter in Restoration Prose Fiction

Jorge Figueroa    Universidade de Vigo    

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abstract

This article draws on recent studies on the fear of derisive laughter (or ‘gelotophobia’) in order to relate them to early modern comments on laughter and to the representation of that anxiety in some texts of Restoration prose fiction, and with a particular emphasis on Alexander Oldys’s The Fair Extravagant(1682). Gelotophobia is a variant of shame anxiety and a social phobia defined as the pathological fear of being an object of laughter. Although the fear shown in the texts analysed is not pathological, it certainly reveals the strong pressure of the shame culture and gender politics prevailing in Restoration England.

Published
Dec. 17, 2018
Accepted
Nov. 26, 2018
Submitted
Oct. 27, 2018
Language
EN

Keywords: Theory of laughter • Social shame • Gelotophobia • Restoration prose fiction • Alexander Oldys

permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/EL/2420-823X/2018/05/007

Copyright: © 2018 Jorge Figueroa. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.