Book: Enjoyment of Laughter

Overview
Max Eastman's Enjoyment of Laughter (1936) offers a broad, spirited inquiry into the nature and pleasures of the comic. Eastman moves between history, philosophy, literary criticism, and psychology to investigate why laughter delights, how comedic forms change over time, and what humor reveals about human character and society. The tone mixes erudition with conversational wit, making theoretical questions accessible through examples drawn from literature, theater, visual art, and everyday life.

Central Themes
A central concern is the mechanics of humor: the moment of surprise, the interplay of incongruity and recognition, and the emotional release that often accompanies laughter. Eastman examines classical and modern accounts of comic appeal, treating theories of superiority, incongruity, and relief as parts of a larger, interlocking explanation rather than mutually exclusive alternatives. He emphasizes that laughter can be both corrective and corrosive, capable of undermining pretension while also binding groups through shared derision.
Another persistent theme is the ethical and social dimension of comedy. Humorous expression functions as a social instrument that can expose hypocrisy, enforce norms, or provide a safe outlet for aggressive impulses. Eastman is attentive to how taste shapes reception: what one culture or class finds uproarious another may find offensive or flat. His interest in taste ties aesthetic judgment to moral sensibility, suggesting that laughter often reflects values as much as cognitive surprise.

Structure and Style
The book unfolds as a sequence of meditative chapters that blend theoretical reflection with illustrative sketches and anecdotes. Rather than advancing a single rigid doctrine, Eastman offers a panoramic treatment that moves from philosophical exemplars to close readings of comic scenes and characters. The prose is lively and direct, often playful in itself, which models the pleasures he describes and keeps technical passages from becoming arid.
Eastman's background as a critic and polemicist shows in his willingness to argue forcefully about comic quality while acknowledging ambiguity. Short shifts between serious analysis and jocular asides give the narrative a performative rhythm: the book not only describes laughter but enacts a kind of conversational comedy that invites the reader's own responses.

Key Examples and Analyses
Illustrations form a major part of Eastman's method. He draws on a wide range of sources, classical theorists, Renaissance dramatists, satirists of the eighteenth century, and modern comic performers, to demonstrate how different ages have handled comic paradoxes. Close attention to devices such as irony, caricature, parody, timing, and physical comedy reveals recurring techniques that generate amusement across media. Eastman also considers the comic persona: how performers and writers craft identities that encourage laughter while negotiating social risk.
Psychological observations appear alongside literary analysis. Eastman explores how nervous energy, social tension, and relief from fear or embarrassment contribute to laughter's cathartic effects. He treats crowd laughter and private mirth as distinct phenomena with different social consequences, and he reflects on the moral responsibility that accompanies the power to make others laugh.

Reception and Legacy
Enjoyment of Laughter was received as a learned and entertaining contribution to the then-emerging study of humor. Its interdisciplinary reach anticipated later work that treats humor as a subject spanning aesthetics, psychology, and sociology. While some readers prize the book for its lively judgments and readable intelligence, others note that its sweeping examples reflect Eastman's personal taste and historical perspective more than exhaustive empirical analysis.
The book remains valuable for its panoramic curiosity and its insistence that laughter merits serious thought. Eastman's combination of critical appetite and sympathetic amusement makes the volume a durable invitation to consider how and why human beings take pleasure in the comic.