Laughter in the trenches : humour and front experience in German first world war narratives
Department or Program
German and Russian Studies
Files
Download Chapter 6: The Short Stories About the First World War from 1914. The Publication and Early Reception of Der Streit um den Sergeanten Grischa (72 KB)
Description
Laughter in the Trenches: Humour and Front Experience in German First World War Narratives explores the appearances and functions of humour and laughter in selected novels and short stories, based on autobiographical experiences, written by authors during the war and in the Weimar Era (1919–1933).
This study focuses on popular and lesser-known works of German literature that played an important role in the socio-political life of the Weimar Republic: Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger (1920), Advance from Mons 1914 by Walter Bloem (1916), The Case of Sergeant Grischa by Arnold Zweig (1927), and All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (1929). The author shows that these works often share surprisingly similar narrative strategies in describing humorous experiences and soldier laughter to justify direct violence and oppressive power structures, regardless of the works’ ideological assignment and their popular and critical reception.
This book also examines the parodic imitations of All Quiet on the Western Front, the German text All Quiet on the Trojan Front by Emil Marius Requark (1930) and the American film So Quiet on the Canine Front by Zion Myers and Jules White (1931) as significant polemical contributions that use humoristic strategies to stress or undermine elements of the original text.
ISBN
978-1-4438-3949-5
Publication Date
7-23-2012
Publisher
Cambridge Scholars Publishing
City
Newcastle upon Tyne
Disciplines
English Language and Literature | History | Sociology
Recommended Citation
Kazecki, Jakub. Laughter in the Trenches: Humour and Front Experience in German First World War Narratives, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012.
Copyright Note
© 2012 Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Comments
The attached chapter is chapter 6:
"The Short Stories About the First World War from 1914. The Publication and Early Reception of Der Streit um den Sergeanten Grischa." In Laughter in the Trenches: Humour and Front Experience in German First World War Narratives, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012.
This is the author's version of the work. This publication appears in Bates College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution.