This article tries to explain what Western philosophers, psychologists, writers and critics have said ‘in attempting to understand humour.’

Experience humour

   We know what it is like to experience humour. Say, someone tells a joke, relates an anecdote, make a witty comment, etc., and we react in ways: smile, chuckle or burst out in laughter, depending upon how funny we find the information to be. Our pleasant response is accompanied by pleasant feelings of emotional well-being.

Dictionary definition of humour

   The Oxford English dictionaries define humour as – ‘that quality of action, speech or writing which excites amusement, oddity, jocularity, facetiousness, comical fun.’ Another dictionary further goes on to explain that humour is ‘the faculty of perceiving what is ludicrous or amusing or of expressing it in speech, writing or other composition: jocose imagination....