CHOICE 2000 Outstanding Academic Book Explicates the worldviews of comedy and tragedy, and analyzes world religions, finding some to be more comic, others more tragic.
"Comedy, Tragedy, and Religion informatively explores the fascinating categories of comedy and tragedy from the perspectives of Eastern and Western religions--the latter, of course, with their own instrinsic fascinations. The lucidity of this book ...(Read More)
"There has long been a need for a source book of classical writings on the nature of humor and laughter. The Morreall book fills this long-standing need. In what other single book can one find out what made Hobbes, Descartes, Kant, and Schopenhauer laugh? And in what other book can one learn what they (and many other philosophers) believed to be the essence of laughter?" -- Jeffrey H. Goldstein, Temple University
"There has never been a time in Western history that humor and laughter were not topics of intellectual debate and interest. That is still true. John Morreall's broad-ranging concerns in Taking Laughter Seriously make it a book that will interest those in the social and behavioral sciences, philosophy, English literature and criticism, drama, and folklore. Morreall has done an admirable job of analyzing earlier theories. His discussions o...(Read More)