Comedy

References and further reading

	Bergson, H. (1956) ‘Laughter’, in Wylie Sypher (ed.) Comedy, Garden City, NY: Doubleday. (An explanation of laughter as the corrective response of a group to an individual’s ‘mechanical inelasticity’. Difficult style.)
	Gutwirth, M. (1993) Laughing Matter: An Essay on the Comic, Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press. (A synthesis of previous theories of laughter and an exploration of the values of comedy. Moderately difficult.)
	Morreall, J. (1987) The Philosophy of Laughter and Humor, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. (An anthology of philosophical writings on laughter and humour from Plato to Roger Scruton, including all philosophers cited in this article.)
	Morreall, J. (1989) ‘The Rejection of Humour in Western Thought’, Philosophy East and West, 39 (3): 244–265. (Traces the development of philosophical theories of humour, and philosophical opposition to humour; suggests overlooked philosophical values of humour, discussing humour in Zen. Easy to read.)
	Plato (c.380s–367) Republic, trans. P. Shorey, Cambridge, MA: Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1930, esp. 388e–389a. (Parallel Greek text and English translation.)