Varieties of risible experience: Grades of laughter and their function in modern American literature

This study delineates eighteen different grades of laughter in six categori es - from the incipient or "inner and inaudible" laugh (the simper and smir k) to the loud and unrestrained hocl, yowl, shriek, and Olympian laugh. It discusses the origins of each, draws distinctions, considers each in terms of tenor and intensity, illustrates the significance of each in key, repres entative works of modern American literature, and demonstrates the function of in terms of T. S. Eliot's objective correlative.