The laughing body: when to laugh is to do

Abstract

In this paper, I start with the deep interrelationship between the linguistic and the corporeal in order to think about the body in the specific act of laughing. The corporeality of the faculty of laughter will serve as a guiding principle to present an analysis of what I will call “laughter act.” A reading of laughter in terms of “speech act” will make it possible for us to appreciate the active capacity of doing things laughing and, more specifically, to explore the dichotomous collapse of the act performed by the laughing body. Thus, I will first go through the specific characteristics of the laughter act and then I will study a particular use from the enunciative position of the female subject, of the Thracian servant. While analyzing the laughter of the slave, I will look at how her doing can be read from the classic theories of laughter and, finally, I will extend the analysis to other possible readings that help us understand both her potential scandal and what her laughter can do. I will conclude how, by unravelling an act of laughter, its performative scope can be appreciated from the necessary interconnection between the linguistic and the corporeal.