Laughter’s Silence in “‘X-ing a Paragrab'” by Matt Brown

Laughter’s Silence in “‘X-ing a Paragrab'”

This edition of “‘X-ing a Paragrab'” explores Poe’s efforts at humor writing. The commentary for the edition presents different analyses of his writing style: the use of narration, the method of characterization, and the pace of his delivery. Readers usually explain Poe’s unfunniness by the distance in time and place for modern readers as we attempt to appreciate jokes and tone from 200 years ago. But comedy features many subtexts. Jokes can participate in kinds of social violence, where you mock others. Sometimes this critical energy constructively punches up; other times it punches down. Comedy also emerges from playfulness, from decidedly unserious invention and digression. Comedy requires a kind of social “buy-in,” where a sense of community is baked in to the willingness to laugh. “‘X-ing a Paragrab'” offers all of these dimensions of humor. Unlike the racist stereotypes of “A Predicament,” Poe’s tale of a rural print-house war mocks members of the editorial and publishing worlds. Unlike creative inventions that tease Poe (such as Katherine Bonny’s “Ms. Found in a Bottle”), the paragrab tale is pretty unfunny. As such, the story illustrates Poe’s anxieties as a literary professional and would-be comedian, where humor serves to reveal his competitiveness and alienation.

The source text is:

Edgar Allan Poe, “‘X-ing a Paragrab’.” 1849. The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe — Vol IV: Pym & Miscellanies (1856): 4:260-266. https://www.eapoe.org/works/tales/xingc.htm

But I am comparing this to the more readable edition present in the 1984 Library of America edition.

The edition is illustrated with images from the hand-press era. The rationale is to show the reader what the scene of the print shop is like, given that a conflict between two newspaper editors drives the story.