Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic

by Henri Bergson, Cloudesley Brereton (Translator), Fred Rothwell (Translator)

Overview

This classic explores why people laugh and what laughter means. According to Bergson, laughter helps us retain our humanity during an age of mechanization. His belief in life as a vital impulse, indefinable by reason alone, informs his perception of comedy as the relief we experience upon distancing ourselves from the mechanistic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780486113579
Publisher:	Dover Publications
Publication date:	03/13/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	112
File size:	409 KB

About the Author

Henri-Louis Bergson (18 October 1859 - 4 January 1941) was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that the processes of immediate experience and intuition are more significant than abstract rationalism and science for understanding reality.
He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize in Literature "in recognition of his rich and vitalizing ideas and the brilliant skill with which they have been presented". In 1930, France awarded him its highest honour, the Grand-Croix de la Legion d'honneur.

Table of Contents

Chapter I The Comic in General--The Comic Element in Forms and Movements--Expansive Force of the Comic
Chapter II The Comic Element in Situations and the Comic Element in Words
Chapter III The Comic in Character