The Fear of Laughter in Restoration Prose Fiction

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DC Field	Value
dc.identifier	ECF_article_1688
dc.title	The Fear of Laughter in Restoration Prose Fiction
dc.contributor.author	Figueroa Jorge
dc.publisher	Edizioni Ca’ Foscari - Digital Publishing
dc.type	Research Article
dc.language.iso	en
dc.identifier.uri	http://edizionicafoscari.it/en/edizioni4/riviste/english-literature/2018/1/the-fear-of-laughter-in-restoration-prose-fiction/
dc.description.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.
dc.relation.ispartof	English Literature
dc.relation.ispartof	Vol. 5 \| December 2018
dc.issued	2018-12-17
dc.dateAccepted	2018-11-26
dc.dateSubmitted	2018-10-27
dc.identifier.issn
dc.identifier.eissn	2420-823X
dc.rights	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.identifier.doi	10.30687/EL/2420-823X/2018/05/007
dc.peer-review	yes
dc.subject	Alexander Oldys
dc.subject	Alexander Oldys
dc.subject	Gelotophobia
dc.subject	Gelotophobia
dc.subject	Restoration prose fiction
dc.subject	Restoration prose fiction
dc.subject	Social shame
dc.subject	Social shame
dc.subject	Theory of laughter
dc.subject	Theory of laughter

Research Article
open access peer reviewed

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

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

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.

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