SOURCE: Timpane, John. “‘I am but a foole, looke you’: Launce and the Social Functions of Humor.” In The Two Gentlemen of Verona: Critical Essays, edited by June Schlueter, pp. 189-211. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1996.

In the following essay, Timpane surveys the significance of humor in Renaissance society, particularly focusing on the character of Launce in Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

Humor performs a wide range of social functions, some of which contribute to the way in which social institutions reorganize. Humor keeps ideas in circulation; it can also generate new ideas, float hypothetical consensus, and clarify problems. Because it can do all these things, humor can be involved in the way people change their minds.

A test case is Launce of Two Gentlemen of Verona. Although one of the earliest, if not the very first, of Shakespeare's comic efforts, Launce nevertheless seems an assured performance...