Meredith's Idea Of Comedy And His Literary Practice In The Egoist

As an important writer in the late Victorian period, George Meredith (1828-1909)concerned himself with exploration of the philosophy of comedy. He expressed his thoughts of comedy in his poems and applied them in his novel writing. In 1877,Meredith formulated his concept of comedy in a famous lecture delivered at London Institute. Subsequently the contents of the lecture were arranged and published with the title An Essay on Comedy and the Uses of Comic Spirit. This Essay defined and illustrated his theory of comedy and served as the theoretical basis for his novel writing in his later life. No wonder one of his most acclaimed novels The Egoist (1879), which immediately succeeded An Essay on Comedy and whose prelude was a set treatise on comedy, could be seen as an accurate annotation to his theory of comedy in terms of both content and form. In spite of its theoretical nature, An Essay on Comedy was written in metaphorical style; that is to say, Meredith did not provide clear definitions or lay down explicit rules. Therefore,this thesis aims at expatiating on Meredith's idea of comedy through a joint study of both An Essay on Comedy and The Egoist and nailing down his idea about what makes a successful comedy.This thesis consists of five chapters. The first chapter is Introduction,which gives a brief introduction to Meredith's life and literary creation, a general survey of past studies of his theory of comedy and the novel The Egoist both at home and abroad, and a short explanation of the focus and structure of the thesis.The second chapter reveals that Meredith considers human folly as the proper target of comedy. In The Egoist, such human follies as self-centeredness and lack of integrity are exposed and ridiculed. Sir Willoughby is a typical egoist, and is always self-centered in his relationships with women, his family and other people. Another folly of his is lack of integrity, which is manifested in the duplicity and incoherence of his thoughts and action. The third chapter discusses Meredith's theory of comic laughter. He designates laughter as the primary weapon of comedy and describes it as 'the play of the intellect".Unlike other comedians who aim to turn their characters into targets of ridicule, Meredith also seeks to initiate laughter of sympathy, and at the same time sets the reader thinking.This laughter of reason softens the tone of criticism, but still performs the function of correcting human folly. The fourth chapter is dedicated to the elaboration on Meredith's idea of comic perception as vital to the success of comedy. Meredith believes that comic perception is required of both the writer and the reader. It first refers to knowledge of the actual world,which, to Meredith,not only enables the writer to produce a good comedy,but also helps the reader to gain "high fellowship". Comic perception then requires proper ways to represent the actual world, and in The Egoist, making use of comic contrasts and the implied author are important ways of representation.The last chapter is Conclusion which summarizes the discussions in the thesis.Through a combined study of Meredith's theoretical work on comedy and his literary practice in The Egoist, the present author hopes to make explicit his principles of comedy.