Description

Are there comic elements in the writings of Franz Kafka? Most people associate Kafka with a nightmarish world devoid of feelings and understanding, full of anonymity and bureaucracy - what is actually called Kafkaesque in the English language. But when Kafka read his works aloud for his friends, they were all laughing madly, and Kafka himself was laughing so much he could hardly read any further. This monograph examines to what extent Kafka's writings could be called comic, if the comic elements provoke a kind-hearted laughter or a vicious one, what different kinds of comedy there is and how one could best define this comedy. The examples are mainly taken from Kafka's last (and by many regarded as his best) novel, Das Schloß, and as a basis for the definition of comedy the author has chosen Nobel prize winner Henri Bergson's study le Rire.