Humor und Komik in der deutschen Gegenwartsliteratur: Arno Schmidt, Eckhard Henscheid und Robert Gernhardt

This thesis explores manifestations of the comical in contemporary German literature and looks in particular at selected works of three of today's foremost humorists, namely Arno Schmidt (1917-1979), Eckhard Henscheid (b.1941), and Robert Gernhardt (b.1937). Despite their considerable achievements, neither of these authors is today considered part of the contemporary literary canon. This neglect, I argue, is largely due to the fact that they almost exclusively work in the comic domain-an area which is still considered less "worthy" by the literary-critical mainstream. Although techniques of irony have been shown to hold a central position in the formation in the modern/postmodern consciousness, comical literature still bears the stigma of less "high" literary quality.;I argue that the comical is not only a literary value in itself, but that it is really a formative device that underlies a great many of structural, stylistical, and rhetorical strategies which in turn constitute no less than (literary) modernity as such. The theoretical basis for this view has been put forth in Peter Sloterdijk's Kritik der zynischen Vernunft (1983). From an assessment of his supposition I proceed to list and evaluate a number of eminent structural means that contribute to comic effects in literature. Special consideration is given to the implications of quotation (a dominant device of modernist literature), as well as to irony, and to the notion of play. Further structural traits of the comic are also extracted from a number of the most important humor-theories (including Jean Paul's Vorschule der Asthetik, Bergson's On Laughter, Freud's pertinent investigations on humor and jokes) and Bakhtin's characterization of the carnivalesque.;The second part shows (through in-depth investigations of selected texts by each of the three writers) how these concepts manifest themselves and how they develop their subversive powers in the writings of the three individual authors. In particular, longer prose-texts by Schmidt (Gelehrtenrepublik; Caliban) and Henscheid (Geht in Ordnung; Beim Fressen beim Fernsehen), shorter prose-work by Henscheid (Kleine Poesien), and poetry by Gernhardt are being studied. The thesis concludes with a look at Gernhardt's own substantial theory of the comic and of humor-criticism (Was gibt's denn da zu lachen?).