ABSTRACT
According to Henri Bergson, laughter 'poses a challenge to philosophical speculation'. But when a laugh becomes a belly laugh, it completely extinguishes attention to what someone is saying. Yawning and laughing is a sort of declaration of independence in the face of rational argument, a refusal to go along with what someone is saying. The belly laugh is different. The laughter that will no doubt arise in response to a preposterous belief will in no way obscure the scientific knowledge that the teacher is seeking to impart, and will in fact probably assist in the learning process. And all of the originality of Alfred Jarry's play is reflected in the role it gives to the belly laugh. Nevertheless, an intriguing confrontation, somewhere in the body, is between loss of composure through laughter and the absolute sexual composure of virginity.
