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User:Jacobisq/Jeu d'esprit

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A jeu d'esprit is a lighthearted literary construct, focusing on clever wittiness rather than moral seriousness,[1] playful charm rather than thematic significance.[2]

The term can also apply to the playing with ideas in general: thus Arthur Koestler considered that there is "a continuous stretch from the pun through the play on words (jeu de mots) to the play of ideas (jeu d'esprit)".[3]

Examples

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  • Dada has been seen as motivated by the jeu d'esprit.[4]
  • Anthony Burgess called his most famous novel A Clockwork Orange a "jeu d'esprit knocked off for money in three weeks".[7]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Jeu d'esprit
  2. ^ R. G. Hogan, Eimar O'Duffy (1972) p. 36-7
  3. ^ Quoted in A. Partington, Linguistics of Laughter (2013) p. 110
  4. ^ Linda Schug, Modernism in 'The Day of the Locust'(1939) (2009) p. 13
  5. ^ H. Carpenter, J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography (2002) p. 235-6
  6. ^ R. G. Hogan, Eimar O'Duffy (1972) p. 37
  7. ^ Quoted in J. D. Keehn, Creativity and Madness (1987) p. 65

Further Reading

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Sigmund Freud, Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious (PFL 6)

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