French Literature Reviews - 2026

W. Redfern, French Laughter. Literary Humour from Diderot to Tournier
Literary Theory, Linguistics and Stylistics

Walter REDFERN, French Laughter. Literary Humor from Diderot to Tournier

Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008, 256 p.

EAN : 9780199237579

SUMMARY

The culmination of a lifetime's fascination with humour in all its forms, this book is the first in any language to embrace such an impressive span of authors and such a broad range of topics in French literary humour.

In nine wide-ranging chapters Walter Redfern considers diverse writers and topics, including: Diderot, viewed as a laughing philosopher, mainly through his fiction (Les Bijoux indiscrets, Le Neveu de Rameau, and Jacques le fataliste); humourlessness, corralling Rousseau, Sade, the Christian God, and Jean-Pierre Brisset; the aesthete Huysmans, in both his avatars, Symbolist and Naturalist (À rebours, Sac au dos, and other texts); the dramatic use of parrots by Flaubert, Queneau, and Beckett; Vallès and la blague; exaggeration in Vallès and Céline (Mort à crédit and L'Enfant); the fiction, plays, and autobiography of Sartre; bad jokes in Beckett; wordplay in Tournier's fiction (especially Le Roi des aulnes and Les Météores).

Five interleaved 'riffs' on laughter, dreams, black humour, politics, and taste, carry the enquiry into questions of humour outside of the purely French context, enhancing a book that impresses as much with its vivacity of style as with the breadth and depth of its scholarship.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Promises, promises

1. The Laughing Philosopher: Diderot

Riff on Laughter

2. The Question of Humourlessness (Rousseau, Sade, God, and Brisset)

Riff on Dreams

3. Huysmans: Back-to-front, and Back-packing

4. A Little Bird Tells Us: Parrots in Flaubert, Queneau, Beckett (and Tutti Quanti)

5. Blague hard! Vallès

Riff on Black Humour

6. Upping the Anti/e: Exaggeration in Vallès and Céline

Riff on Politics

7. Drôle de philosophie: Sartre

8. Bad Jokes and Beckett

Riff on Taste

9. Approximating Man: Michel Tournier's Play with Words

Inconclusion

Bibliography

BIOGRAPHY

Walter Redfern, Emeritus Professor of French Studies, University of Reading

The study of comic modes within French literature has long occupied a significant place in academic criticism, engaging with how writers from the Enlightenment onward employ irony, satire, and wit. Walter Redfern contributes to this tradition by examining diverse manifestations of humor across multiple centuries and genres. Academic inquiry into these texts often highlights the philosophical dimensions of laughter, tracing how writers utilize comic devices not merely for diversion, but as a critical apparatus to interrogate social norms, narrative structures, and existential dilemmas.

Readers interested in the intersections of philosophy, narrative prose, and comic writing within French literature may find this volume relevant. The chapters address specific figures such as Diderot, Huysmans, Céline, Sartre, and Beckett, analyzing their distinct approaches to humor, exaggeration, and wordplay. Scholars exploring the broader trajectory of literary humor will recognize how these analyses connect individual oeuvres to wider currents in European letters, without presuming to offer an exhaustive survey of the entire field.