In his essay The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), the French existentialist Albert Camus lays out his exposition of the human condition. He draws on the ancient Greek myth of King Sisyphus in order to typify what it means to exist as a human in day-to-day life, which is a rather bleak picture it turns out.…
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We are a storytelling species. Not only do we weave stories about our own lives (which is known as narrativisation: the process of presenting and interpreting experiences, events, and scenarios in the form of a narrative; that is, a story), we also create, tell, and retell stories of an epic, mythic, and fantastical nature. Moreover,…
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A jester is an entertainer that a monarch or nobleman would employ to entertain him and his guests. These court jesters thrived in the medieval and Renaissance eras. These jovial entertainers wore hats featuring floppy, pointed protrusions, with a bell hanging from the tip of each protrusion. They also donned motley clothing (the traditional costume…
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People will have different opinions about what is funny and what isn’t; what makes them laugh and what doesn’t. But we do know that humour and laughter exist, so the mysterious question surrounding this fact is: how did they evolve? Is there really some evolutionary advantage to finding ‘humour’ (however you define it) in social…
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