This text aims to provide an extensive and detailed philosophic analysis of the phenomenon of the comic. The author examines existing theories of the comic, from Aristotle to date, and classifies them, as well as advancing his own definition of the comic as a broadly understood deviation from the norm, which takes into account not only the deviation from an objectively existing norm, but the subjective sense of the normal as well. The author also provides a taxonomy of previous analyses of this subject, and discusses the major techniques of evoking the comic. The final part of the book deals with the social aspects of the comic and discusses the social role of humour mockery, satire and irony. He elaborates on the educational, integrating, punitive, and therapeutic aspects of various forms of comic activities. This text is based on material drawn from a range of sources. The author does not limit the scope of his analysis to the philosophical and the aesthetic aspects of the comic, but takes into account its extra-aesthetic occurences and applications as presented by psychologists, cultural anthropologists, sociologists, theoreticians and historians of literature, film and music.This study should be of interest to students of literary criticism, theatre and film studies, educational theory, psychology and theory of augmentation, as well as to aestheticians and philosophers of art.
