Laughter In The Middle Ages And Early Modern Times —— Epistemology of a Fundamental Human Behavior, its Meaning, and Consequences

----- 中世纪与近代早期的笑声：基本人类行为认识论，其意义及价值

ISBN: 9783110245479 出版年：2010 页码：863 Classen, Albrecht De Gruyter

Despite popular opinions of the ′;dark Middle Ages′ and a ′;gloomy early modern age,′ many people laughed, smiled, giggled, chuckled, entertained and ridiculed each other. This volume demonstrates how important laughter had been at times and how diverse the situations proved to be in which people laughed, and this from late antiquity to the eighteenth century. The contributions examine a wide gamut of significant cases of laughter in literary texts, historical documents, and art works where laughter determined the relationship among people. In fact, laughter emerges as a kaleidoscopic phenomenon reflecting divine joy, bitter hatred and contempt, satirical perspectives and parodic intentions. In some examples protagonists laughed out of sheer happiness and delight, in others because they felt anxiety and insecurity.