Laughter - An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic by Henri Louis Bergson

Laughter - An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic by Henri Louis Bergson

2014 Reprint of Original 1912 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Laughter is a collection of three essays by French philosopher Henri Bergson, first published in 1900. In a short introduction, Bergson announces that he will try to define the comic, but he does not want to give a rigid definition of the word; he wants to deal with the comic as part of human life. His ambition is also to have a better knowledge of society, of the functioning of human imagination and of collective imagination, but also of art and life. Bergson begins to note three facts on the comic: 1] the comic is strictly a human phenomenon. A landscape cannot be a source of laughter, and when humans make fun of animals, it is often because they recognize some human behavior in them. Man is not only a being that can laugh, but also a being that is a source of laughter. 2] laughter requires an indifference, a detachment from sensibility and emotion: 3] it is more difficult to laugh when one is fully aware of the seriousness of a situation. It is difficult to laugh alone, it is easier to laugh collectively. One who is excluded from a group of people does not laugh with them, there is often a complicity in laughter. Thus the comic is not a mere pleasure of the intellect, it is a human and social activity, it has a social meaning.

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ISBN 13
Title	Laughter - An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic
Author	Henri Louis Bergson
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Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.