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PhilosophyLaughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the ComicHenri BergsonLaughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic

Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic

Henri Bergson

PhilosophyEnglish
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Why do we laugh? Henri Bergson argues that we laugh when a living person behaves like a machine: when someone keeps walking into the same trap, repeats the…

Catalogue details

Author
Henri Bergson
Category
Philosophy
Language
English
Source
Project Gutenberg

About this book

Why do we laugh? Henri Bergson argues that we laugh when a living person behaves like a machine: when someone keeps walking into the same trap, repeats the same gesture, sticks rigidly to a fixed idea or is suddenly reduced to a puppet by circumstances. The comic, he says, is 'something mechanical encrusted on the living'. Laughter requires a momentary absence of feeling, and it is a social act, a way in which society corrects stiffness and eccentricity. He studies comedy of situation, of words and of character, with many examples from Molière and from Don Quixote.

Context and significance

Bergson (1859–1941), one of the most famous philosophers of his time and a Nobel laureate in literature, published the essay in 1900. It remains one of the most often quoted theories of humour. This translation is by Cloudesley Brereton and Fred Rothwell. Test his theory on Cervantes's Don Quixote and Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.

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