Abstract: This article examines Barbey d'Aurevilly's relationship to laughter and its relation to other emotions such as sadness and melancholy. Confronted with the “sad burlesque” of his time, on which he cast an unparalleled satirical eye, did he endorse the laughter of superiority, vile in its expression and cruel in its intentions, which in his view dominated 19th-century comedy? Here, we attempt to define the contours of other comic nuances in his work.
