Colloque : “Laughter, smile and sneer: humour in early modern literature”, Berlin, Freie Universität Berlin, 4-5 mai 2023
Since the classical antiquity, there has been no lack of reflections on the nature of laughter and humour, whose definition has always been problematic and full of nuances. Only by the end of the 17th century its modern meaning begins to appear in European dictionaries: a specific frame of mind in which intelligence, readiness, and communicative ability coexist to identify and express the comic or curious side of things. Nevertheless, humour, communicated in all sorts...