Dr. Robert Mayhew on "Humor in The Fountainhead"
Ayn Rand said that humor did not play a major role in her novels nor in the lives of her heroes. This is certainly true of The Fountainhead, an earnest work of reverence for man the hero. There are, however, humorous touches in most of Ayn Rand's fiction--including The Fountainhead, her most satirical novel. In this lecture, Dr. Mayhew will examine the nature and role of humor in The Fountainhead, and why humor is more prevalent in this novel than in Atlas Shrugged. (Some of this material has appeared elsewhere, but most of it is presented here for the first time.)View the flyer for this event.
Dr. Mayhew is Professor of Philosophy at Seton Hall University. He is the author of Aristotle's Criticism of Plato's Republic, The Female in Aristotle's Biology, and Ayn Rand and Song of Russia and the editor of Ayn Rand's Marginalia, The Art of Nonfiction, Essays on Ayn Rand's We the Living, Ayn Rand Answers, and Essays on Ayn Rand's Anthem. Dr. Mayhew received his Ph.D in philosophy from Georgetown University in 1991.
Robert Mayhew also spoke on "The Rise and Fall of Ancient Greek Justice: Homer to the Sermon on the Mount" at University of Colorado at Boulder on January 20th, 2006.