Enjoyment

Philosophy, art criticism and popular opinion all seem to treat the aesthetics of the comic as lightweight, while the tragic seems to be regarded with greater seriousness. Why this favouring of sadness over joy? Can it be justified? What are the criteria by which the significance of comedy can be estimated vis a vis tragedy? Questions such as these underlie this selection of studies, which provides insights into the comic, the joyful, and laughter itself. This challenge to the popular attitude relates such matters to the profundity with which we enjoy life and its role in the deployment of the human condition. In her introduction the editor points out that the tragic and the comic might be complementary in their respective sense-bestowing modes as well as in their dynamic functions; they might both share in the primogenital function of promoting the self-individualizing progress of human existence.