Sick humour, healthy laughter: the use of medicine in Rabelais's jokes.(Critical essay)

From: The Modern Language Review | Date: July 1, 2006| Author: Williams, Alison | Copyright information

This article considers how medicine and humour interact in three specific ways in Rabelais's works. First the description of injuries using precise anatomical detail is discussed with reference to Henri Bergson's theory of indifference and Sigmund Freud's writings on tendentious jokes. Second Rabelais's persona as both author and doctor is analysed in the contexts of affiliative humour and therapeutic laughter. This is supported by a review of modern research into the use of laught...

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