德妮思．杜哈茉為美國當代詩壇裡最受歡迎的詩人之一。她的作品常見於各大文學雜誌、詩刊，並廣受各種不同年齡階層、性別取向、政治傾向、以及族群認同等讀者喜愛，因而被封為一親民文學運動：詼諧詩（Stand-Up Poetry）的代表人物。該標籤來自詩評人珊卓．塔林（Sandra Tarling）的研究，她指出詼諧詩的特點為幽默、白話，且多捕捉城市生活的光怪陸離，詼諧詩人（Stand-Up poet）師法美國特有的脫口喜劇（Stand-Up comedy）、有聲詩（Spoken Word）、和表演詩（performance poetry），將幽默與表演的元素注入詩作之中，作為對於美國當代主流詩派——抒情詩（lyric tradition），以及現代社會、文化（尤其消費主義）的生動回應。本文即以塔林的文論為出發，杜哈茉的生平、職涯為基本架構，輔以美國八○年代以降的詩文走勢，探討杜哈茉作為一個詼諧詩人、創作詼諧詩的養成經過，以及其詼諧詩所帶與讀者的迷人「享驗」（pleasure-seeking experience）。文中大量引用葛蘭．瑞奇（Graeme Ritchie）的笑話理論與約翰．萊曼（John Limon）的脫口喜劇研究，前者的不協調原則（incongruity）用於構築詼諧詩的基本形式與架構，後者的羞辱心理（abjection）則深入文化、社會層面，將詼諧詩的內容剖析至杜哈茉與其讀者之間的親和認同，進而凸顯杜哈茉詩中鼓勵女性突破禮教束縛、追求個人快樂的女性主義信念。本研究一方面確立杜哈茉於美國當代詩壇的地位與影響，另一方面也重新檢視塔林定義之詼諧詩，為其增補新意。

Denise Duhamel is a one-woman phenomenon in modern American poetry. Her work is read, heard and appreciated by a broad audience which crosses generations, as well as gender, political, racial and other divides. She has been identified as a seminal figure in the movement that has come to be known as stand-up poetry, and is one of the most acknowledged and reprinted American poets of recent decades.
This thesis considers Duhamel''s work in the context of her life and career. It seeks to identify the characteristics of her poetry which account for her genre-transcending appeal, and to trace the genesis of those characteristics in her experiences, especially those during her time as a graduate student in the Creative Writing Program at Sarah Lawrence College in New York in the eighties.
One interesting and important factor is her use of humor in her poems, and her appropriation of elements from stand-up comedy (a feature often cited as the hallmark of stand-up poetry). A significant part of the present thesis is therefore devoted to an analysis of this much under-theorized area of literary culture, with a view to better understanding Duhamel''s use of humor and “joke-work,” and in particular the way in which she makes use of comedy and comedic devices to build a rapport with her audience. This aspect of her work is compared and contrasted with the way in which similar themes are used by stand-up comics themselves, with a focus on the role played by the theme of abjection, and two great exponents of abject humor from past and present: Lenny Bruce, and Sarah Silverman.
Having considered these aspects in some detail, the thesis closes with a brief assessment of the characterization of Duhamel as a stand-up poet, and concludes that Sandra Tarling''s definition of the stand-up poet as writing firstly for the page, and only subsequently for the stage, does not fit Duhamel especially well, since her poetry is first and foremost a performative endeavor.

Abstract i
中文摘要 ii
Acknowledgements iii
Chapter One:Introduction 1
Chapter Two:The Back-Story to Duhamel''s Stand-Up Poetry 7
Chapter Three:The Comic Structure of Duhamel''s Verse 26
Chapter Four:Humoring the Abject Body 43
Chapter Five:Conclusion 62
Works Cited 65

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