Thomas R. Hart
Peter Russell has shown that Cervantes's contemporaries considered Don Quixote a funny book, while many readers now consider it a serious and even tragic work. Three modern theorists of comedy � Northrop Frye, Henri Bergson, and Elder Olson � describe qualities most readers expect to find in a comic work. The absence of these qualities, or the presence of other opposing qualities, in Don Quixote helps to account for the reluctance of many readers today to agree that it is indeed a funny book.