Painting of thirty-five expressive heads.

Thirty-five Expressive Heads, by Louis-Léopold Boilly, c. 1825. Musee des Beaux-Arts, Tourcoing, France.

Comedy

Volume VII, Number 1 | winter 2013

Preamble

The Solid Nonpareil

By Lewis H. Lapham

From Mesopotamia to Mark Twain, the question has remained the same for thousands of years—who’s laughing now?

More

Black and white photograph of a clown laughing in front of a storefront.

Split Personalities

By Andrew McConnell Stott

Is it a condition of comic genius to be always wrestling with demons?

More

Map showing comedic theater tropes from around the world.

Map

The Human Comedy

Theatrical fools and buffoons from around the world and across time.

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Miscellany

Gioachino Rossini was known to possess strong opinions about other composers. “Wagner has some fine moments,” he estimated, “but some bad quarters of an hour.” After hearing Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, he remarked, “What a good thing it isn’t music.”

c. 1940 | Ireland

Flann O’Brien Splits the Atom

Atomic theory is beyond the reach of the third policeman. More

1456 | Paris

Last Testament

François Villon writes his will and burns a few bridges.More

c. 330 BC | Athens

Categorical Imperatives

Aristotle explains that the aim of comedy is to show men as more terrible than they really are.More

Charts & Graphs

Funny one-liners from action films and the actors who have said them

All in the Delivery

Classic one-liners from action films.

View

color photograph of Victor Frankl with his hand on his chin looking pensive

Image of Renaissance humanist and scholar Poggio Bracciolini.

black and white photo of Steve Martin wearing a white dinner jacket and black tie

Pastel drawing of George Eliot.

Photograph of Charles Baudelaire

David Simon sitting outside wearing an Irish driver cap

black and white photo of Kurt Vonnegut sitting over coffee and a book

Black and white photograph of a young Mark Twain with dark hair.

A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.

- George Eliot, 1876

St. John Chrysostom & Charles Baudelaire

Lapham’sDaily

Thelonious Monk, Minton’s Playhouse, New York, 1947. Photograph by William P. Gottlieb. Library of Congress, Music Division.

Roundtable

Lewis Lapham Reads “’Round Midnight”

By Lapham’s Quarterly

Listen to the preamble to Music, the Fall 2017 issue of Lapham’s Quarterly. More

U.S. secretary of agriculture Sonny Perdue meets with German minister of food and agriculture Christian Schmidt, 2017.

DÉjÀ Vu

Equal Climates

2017:

U.S. Department of Agriculture bans words related to climate change.

-350:

Aristotle denies that the climate is changing.

More

The Fall of Man, by Titian, c. 1550.

LQ Podcast

#13 Stephen Greenblatt

Lewis H. Lapham talks with Stephen Greenblatt, author of The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve. More

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