Laughter : an essay on the meaning of the comic / by Henri Bergson ; authorised translation by Cloudesley Brereton and Fred Rothwell.

  • Bergson, Henri, 1859-1941.
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Laughter : an essay on the meaning of the comic / by Henri Bergson ; authorised translation by Cloudesley Brereton and Fred Rothwell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    spring morning. But a comic expression of the face is one that promises nothing more than it gives. It is a unique and per- manent grimace. One would say that the person’s whole moral life has crystallised into this particular cast of features. This is the reason why a face is ail the more comic, the more nearly it suggests to us the idea of some simple mechanical action in which its person- ality would for ever be absorbed. Some faces seem to be always engaged in weeping, others in laughing or whistling, others, again, in eter- nally blowing an imaginary trumpet, and these are the most comic faces of ail. Here again is exemplified the law according to which the more natural the explanation of the cause, the more comic is the effect. Automatism, in- elasticity, habit that has been contracted and maintained, are clearly the causes why a face makes us laugh. But this effect gains in in- tensity when we are able to connect these characteristics with some deep-seated cause, a certain fundamental absentmindedness, as though the soûl had allowed itself to be fascinated and hypnotised by the materiality of a simple action.