ABSTRACT
Humour has been a subject of immense fascination for philosophers since Socrates, his student Plato and Plato's student Aristotle began to explore its complexity. This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book sets out to establish a range of approaches that would promote and facilitate a serious cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural approach to humour that is long overdue. It succeeds in teasing out philosophical approaches and humorous forms and strategies occurring in literature and art from the Classical period through to the twentieth century. The book demonstrates that reading humorously is a refreshing perspective that enables even some of the oldest and most familiar texts to reveal often obscured aspects of their complex creation and reception. Most of the early church fathers gave sermons condemning laughter, medieval monasteries had punishments for laughter, and humour was carefully monitored during the rule of the Tudors in the 1600s.
