A University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa professor emeritus is reshaping how scholars understand comic writing.
James E. Caron has published a new book, Comic Belles Lettres: Genealogies of Humor and Satire in Anglo-American Literature, 1711–1856 , examining how humor and satire developed within a specific aesthetic, comic belles lettres.
Caron's research challenges a familiar narrative: American humor before the Civil War is often tied to frontier life and regional voices. But his book points to a broader, shared tradition between British and American writers.
"I want other scholars of American humor/culture to discover that a significant portion of antebellum comic writing in the U.S. shares a literary heritage with British writers," said Caron, who taught English at UH Mānoa for 36 years. "The book stresses that transatlantic feature rather than the usual emphasis on comic writing with frontier settings and vernacular speech."
