How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph), with the exception of Part V, which runs (Part#. "Short Title". Paragraph). Part V has no numbered chapters—only title headings.
Quote #10
"Laughter, on the other hand," Petrarch went on, "is an explosion that tears us away from the world and throws us back into our own cold solitude. Joking is the barrier between man and the world. Joking is the enemy of love and poetry." (V. "Boccaccio's Laughter".17)
Petrarch and Boccaccio clearly do not get along. For Boccaccio, love is a series of fart jokes and vulgar pranks; for Petrarch, love is sublime, ethereal, serious work. Kundera seems to side with Petrarch's theory of laughter—it has a way of making the most solemn moments in life into theater of the absurd.