The Comic Imagination in Modern African Literature and Cinema : A Poetics of Laughter.

Cover -- Half Title -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1 The Flaming Masquerade and Comic Simplicitas -- 2 The Wilderness Paradox and Comic Magnitude -- 3 Dramatic Poetry and Comic Synthesis -- 4 Nollywood Cinema and the Semiotics of Laughter -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index.

This book significantly expands the interdisciplinary discourse on African literature and cinema by exploring Africa's under-visited carnivalesque poetics of laughter. Focusing on modern African literature as well as contemporary African cinema and Nollywood, it examines the often-neglected aesthetics of the African comic imagination. In modern African literature the pertinent styles range from comic simplicitas to comic magnitude with the facilitation of language, characterization, and plot by a poetics of laughter or lightness as an important aspect of style. The African comic imagination variously reflects, across genres, both the festival character of comedy and its pedagogical value.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.