Humor

Humor raises the question of how humor can be simultaneously a form of camaraderie, a glimpse of utopia, and a political weapon to be wielded against the powerful. Why do we laugh? How can we distinguish the infinite variety of possibilities of laughter? Is humor subversive, or can it help to soften disagreements? This study reflects on the nature of humor and its functions, critically examining various theories on the subject. Drawing on a wide range of literary and philosophical sources, Terry Eagleton moves from Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas to Hobbes, Freud, and Bakhtin, looking in particular at the psychoanalytic mechanisms underlying humor and its social and political evolution over the centuries.