The Politics of Humor = Whose Laughter, Which Comedy?
The Politics of HumorWhose Laughter, Which Comedy? By Terry EagletonCommonweal, May 6, 2019 Jan Steen, The Merry Family, 1668 (Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Amsterdam / Wikimedia Commons) The governing elites of ancient and medieval Europe were not greatly hospitable to humor. From the earliest times, laughter seems to have been a class affair, with a firm distinction enforced between..