The politics of laughter in Ariosto's 'Orlando Furioso' and Cervantes' 'Don Quixote'

This dissertation explores the function of laughter in the Orlando Furioso and Don Quixote. Contrary to those who consider laughter an emotional release devoid of social and political importance, this study will show that laughter is a very powerful social and political world view. For Ariosto and Cervantes laughter was a most appropriate literary vehicle with which to respond to the great social and political changes of their time. Embodying the political climate of their milieu, their characters are ridiculous because they fail to be political in the Platonic-Aristotelian sense of the word politike and because they fail to engage with the political life of their communities. These characters are idions, that is to say, they are ridiculously unethical: they are irresponsible and apolitical, and as such they are ridiculed.;In order to understand the social-political aspects of laughter, we will first have to answer the question, what is a system of ethics. A system of ethics aims to prescribe the right kind of social action according to different situations: political, military, economic, etc. Plato's and Aristotle's philosophies, and Pico della Mirandola's and Leonardo Bruni's theories, will demonstrate that systems of ethics are not transcendental but answer to different situations, and that an ethics is the prescription for social behavior and not merely individual behavior.;For example, the knights in the Orlando Furioso are ridiculous for two main reasons: one, because they are swayed by their appetites and two, because they are not loyal to the principles of knighthood, and specifically to their political, ethical and moral duties. Don Quixote, on the other hand, is ridiculous for opposite reasons. Forgetful or, neglectful of the contemporary social and economic life-world around him, Don Quixote is obsessively loyal to a set of ethics relevant only to chivalry, and not to his contemporary society. Thus, while the knights in the Orlando Furioso are derided for being individualistic and devoid of any high ideals, for failing to behave in ways conducive to the common good, Don Quixote suffers ridicule for being too idealistic and for attempting to enforce certain ideals that have no relevance given the contemporary state of affairs---illustrative of the fact that moral values and ideology are historically bound.;Four chapters constitute the main body of this dissertation: Chapter I is devoted to Plato and Aristotle's conceptualization of ethics and laughter and, Chapter II is dedicated to the Renaissance understanding of political and ethical agency in the philosophies of Leonardo Bruni and Pico della Mirandola. After proposing the relationship between politics and ethics in the first two chapters, Chapter III analyzes the ridiculous behavior of the idions in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso and Chapter IV analyzes the honorable---yet foolish conduct of the knight in Cervantes' Don Quixote.