Publisher's Synopsis
Laughter
An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic
By Henri Bergson Member of the Institute Professor at the College De France
Authorised Translation
By Cloudesley Brereton and Fred Rothwell
Laughter is a collection of three essays by French philosopher Henri Bergson, first published in 1900. It was written in French, the original title is Le Rire. Essai sur la signification du comique ("Laughter, an essay on the meaning of the comic").
The three essays were first published in the French review Revue de Paris. A book was published in 1924 by the Alcan publishing house. It was reprinted in 1959 by the Presses Universitaires de France, on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Bergson.
In a foreword published in 1900, but suppressed in 1924, Bergson explains that through the three articles, he wanted to study laughter, especially the laughter caused by the comic, and to determine the principal categories of comic situations, to determine the laws of the comic. He also added a list of works and studies about laughter and the comic.
In the preface written in 1924 to replace the initial foreword, Bergson explains that his method is entirely new because it consists in determining the process of the comic instead of analyzing the effects of the comic. He specifies that his method does not contradict the results of the other one, but he assumes that it is more rigorous from a scientific point of view. He adds a larger bibliography.
