ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the clash between social uniformity and personal anomalies as a key to understanding the functions of laughter in four major Italian authors from the early twentieth century. It argues that the Italian modernists' emphasis on individual eccentricity should be seen in partial continuity with the nineteenth-century concern for the eradication of originality. If laughter can be deemed the most distinctive feature of the 'Italian way' within early twentieth-century European literature, then this is largely due to the works of Luigi Pirandello, Italo Svevo, Aldo Palazzeschi, and Carlo Emilio Gadda. Likewise, Palazzeschi's buffi deviate from the collective nomos in the most varied ways — grotesque deformity, voluntary isolation, or eccentric habits. In Sterne, for instance, Tristram's humour and Uncle Toby's originality appear to be relatively integrated into the social fabric, thus attesting to the author's optimistic view of civilisation.
