Abstract
Medically speaking, laughing is one of several abnormal forms of respiration like sneezing, crying, and yawning. Mechanically it is produced by a series of short expiratory blasts which provoke a clear sound from the vocal chords and cause at the same time other inarticulate but nevertheless characteristic sounds from the vibrating structures of the larynx and pharynx. The face shows a characteristic expression that is essentially involuntary and often beyond control, but is generally interpreted as a friendly gesture. It can only be imitated imperfectly.
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Notes
Immanuel Kant: Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, translated by Victor L. Dowdell, revised and edited by Hans H. Rudnick (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978), p. 167.
Ibid., p. 168.
Ibid., p. 169.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 169f.
Sophocles: Antigone, translated by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald (New York: Harcourt Brace Javanovich, 1939).
Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf, transi. by Basil Creighton, rev. by Walter Sorell (New York: Modem Library, 1963), p. 18. Subsequent page references will be given in parentheses in the text.
Samuel Beckett, Endgame (New York: Grove Press, 1958), p. 11. Subsequent page references to this play will be given in the text.
Gabriel Marcel, The Philosophy of Existentialism, transi. by Manya Harari (New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1991), p. 12.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Donald Barthelme, “Me and Miss Mandible,” in Come Back, Dr. Caligari (New York: Little Brown and Co., 1964), pp. 95–111.
Ronald Wallace, The Last Laugh (Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1979), p. 3.
Leo J. Hertzel, “An Interview with Robert Coover,” Critique 11, no. 3 (1969): 25–29.
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© 1998 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Rudnick, H.H. (1998). Joyless Laughter: Sophocles — Hesse — Beckett. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) Enjoyment. Analecta Husserliana, vol 56. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1425-9_20
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