Part 24

As tempting as it would be to trace these more intimate determinations of comic pleasure, the author must remember that neither his previous education nor his daily vocation justifies him in extending his investigations beyond the spheres of wit, and he must confess that it is precisely the subject of comic comparison which makes him feel his incompetence.

We are quite willing to be reminded that many authors do not recognize the clear notional and objective distinction between wit and comic, as we were impelled to do, and that they classify wit merely as “the comic of speech” or “of words.” To test this view let us select one example of intentional and one of involuntary comic of speech and compare it with wit. We have already mentioned before that we are in a good position to distinguish comic from witty speech. “With a fork and with effort, his mother pulled him out of the mess,” is only comical, but Heine’s verse about the four castes of the population of Göttingen: “Professors, students, Philistines, and cattle,” is exquisitely witty.

As an example of the intentional comic of speech I will take as a model Stettenheim’s Wippchen. We call Stettenheim witty because he possesses the cleverness that evokes the comic. The wit which one “has” in contradistinction to the wit which one “makes,” is indeed correctly conditioned by this ability. It is true that the letters of Wippchen are also witty in so far as they are interspersed with a rich collection of all sorts of witticisms, some of which very successful ones, (as “festively undressed” when he speaks of a parade of savages), but what lends the peculiar character to these productions is not these isolated witticisms, but the superabundant flow of comic speech contained therein. Originally Wippchen was certainly meant to represent a satirical character, a modification of Freytag’s Schmock, one of those uneducated persons who trade in the educational treasure of the nation and abuse it; but the pleasure in the comic effect experienced in representing this person seems gradually to have pushed to the background the author’s satirical tendency. Wippchen’s productions are for the most part “comic nonsense.” The author has justly utilized the pleasant mood resulting from the accumulation of such achievements to present beside the altogether admissible material all sorts of absurdities which would be intolerable in themselves. Wippchen’s nonsense appears to be of a specific nature only on account of its special technique. If we look closer into some of these “witticisms,” we find that some forms which have impressed their character on the whole production are especially conspicuous. Wippchen makes use mostly of compositions (fusions), of modifications of familiar expressions and quotations. He replaces some of the banal elements in these expressions by others which are usually more pretentious and more valuable. This naturally comes near to the techniques of wit.

The Comic of Speech

Some of the fusions taken from the preface and the first pages are the following: “Turkey’s money is like the hay of the sea.” This is only a condensation of the two expressions, “Money like hay,” “Money like the sands of the sea.” Or: “I am nothing but a leafless pillar which tells of a vanished splendor,” which is a fusion of “leafless trunk” and “a pillar which, etc.” Or: “Where is Ariadne’s thread which leads out of the Scylla of this Augean stable?” for which three different Greek myths contribute an element each.

The modifications and substitutions can be treated collectively without much forcing; their character can be seen from the following examples which are peculiar to Wippchen, they are regularly permeated by a different wording which is more fluent, most banal, and reduced to mere platitudes.

“To hang my paper and ink high.” The saying: “To hang one’s bread-basket high,” expresses metaphorically the idea of placing one under difficult conditions. But why not stretch this figure to other material?

“Already in my youth Pegasus was alive in me.” When the word “pegasus” is replaced by “the poet,” one can recognize it as an expression often used in autobiographies. Naturally “pegasus” is not the proper word to replace the words “the poet,” but it has thought associations to it and is a high-sounding word.

From Wippchen’s other numerous productions some examples can be shown which present the pure comic. As an example of comic disillusionment the following can be cited: “For hours the battle raged, finally it remained undecisive”; an example of comical unmasking (of ignorance) is the following: “Clio, the Medusa of history,” or quotations like the following: “Habent sua fata morgana.” But our interest is aroused more by the fusions and modifications because they recall familiar techniques of wit. We may compare them to such modification witticisms as the following: “He has a great future behind him,” and Lichtenberg’s modification witticisms such as: “New baths heal well,” etc. Should Wippchen’s productions having the same technique be called witticisms, or what distinguishes them from the latter?

It is surely not difficult to answer this. Let us remember that wit presents to the hearer a double face, and forces him to two different views. In nonsense-witticisms such as those mentioned last, one view, which considers only the wording, states that they are nonsense; the other view, which, in obedience to suggestion, follows the road that leads through the hearer’s unconscious, finds very good sense in these witticisms. In Wippchen’s wit-like productions one of these views of wit is empty, as if stunted. It is a Janus head with only one countenance developed. One would get nowhere should he be tempted to proceed by means of this technique to the unconscious. The condensations lead to no case in which the two fused elements really result in a new sense; they fall to pieces when an attempt is made to analyze them. As in wit, the modifications and substitutions lead to a current and familiar wording, but they themselves tell us little else and as a rule nothing that is of any possible use. Hence the only thing remaining to these “witticisms” is the nonsense view. Whether such productions, which have freed themselves from one of the most essential characters of wit, should be called “bad” wit or not wit at all, every one must decide as he feels inclined.

There is no doubt that such stunted wit produces a comic effect for which we can account in more than one way. Either the comic originates through the uncovering of the unconscious modes of thinking in a manner similar to the cases considered above, or the wit originates by comparison with perfect wit. Nothing prevents us from assuming that we here deal with a union of both modes of origin of the comic pleasure. It is not to be denied that it is precisely the inadequate dependence on wit which here shapes the nonsense into comic nonsense.

Comic of Inadequacy

There are, of course, other quite apparent cases, in which such inadequacy produced by the comparison with wit, makes the nonsense irresistibly comic. The counterpart to wit, the riddle, can perhaps give us better examples for this than wit itself. A facetious question states: What is this: It hangs on the wall and one can dry his hands on it? It would be a foolish riddle if the answer were: a towel. On the contrary this answer is rejected with the statement: No, it is a herring,—“But, for mercy’s sake,” is the objection, “a herring does not hang on the wall.”—“But you can hang it there,”—“But who wants to dry his hands on a herring?”—“Well,” is the soft answer, “you don’t have to.” This explanation given through two typical displacements show how much this question lacks of being a real riddle, and because of this absolute insufficiency it impresses one as irresistibly comic, rather than mere nonsensical foolishness. Through such means, that is, by not restricting essential conditions, wit, riddles, and other forms, which in themselves produce no comic pleasure, can be made into sources of comic pleasure.

It is not so difficult to understand the case of the involuntary comic of speech which we can perhaps find realized with as much frequency as we like in the poems of Frederika Kempner.

ANTI-VIVISECTION.

Fraternal sentiment should urge us To champion the Guinea-pig, For has it not a soul like ours, Although most likely not as big?

Or a conversation between a loving couple.

THE CONTRAST.

The young wife whispers “I’m so happy,” “And I!” chimes in her husband’s voice, “Because your virtues, dearest help-mate, Reveal the wisdom of my choice.”

There is nothing here which makes one think of wit. Doubtless, however, it is the inadequacy of these “poetic productions,” as the very extraordinary clumsiness of the expressions which recall the most commonplace or newspaper style, the ingenious poverty of thoughts, the absence of every trace of poetic manner of thinking or speaking,—it is all these inadequacies which make these poems comic. Nevertheless it is not at all self-evident that we should find Kempner’s poems comical; many similar productions we merely consider very bad, we do not laugh at them but are rather vexed with them. But here it is the great disparity in our demand of a poem which impels us to the comic conception; where this difference is less, we are inclined to criticise rather than laugh. The comic effect of Kempner’s poetic productions is furthermore assured by the additional circumstances of the lady author’s unmistakably good intentions, and by the fact that her helpless phrases disarm our feeling of mockery and anger. We are now reminded of a problem the consideration of which we have so far postponed. The difference of expenditure is surely the main condition of the comic pleasure, but observation teaches that such difference does not always produce pleasure. What other conditions must be added, or what disturbances must be checked in order that pleasure should result from the difference of expenditure? But before proceeding with the answers to these questions we wish to verify what was said in the conclusions of the former discussion, namely, that the comic of speech is not synonymous with wit, and that wit must be something quite different from speech comic.

As we are about to attack the problem just formulated, concerning the conditions of the origin of comic pleasure from the difference of expenditure, we may permit ourselves to facilitate this task so as to cause ourselves some pleasure. To give a correct answer to this question would amount to an exhaustive presentation of the nature of the comic for which we are fitted neither by ability nor authority. We shall therefore again be content to elucidate the problem of the comic only so far as it distinctly separates itself from wit.

All theories of the comic were objected to by the critics on the ground that in defining the comic these theories overlooked the essential element of it. This can be seen from the following theories, with their objections. The comic depends on a contrasting idea; yes, in so far as this contrast effects one comically and in no other way. The feeling of the comic results from the dwindling away of an expectation; yes, if the disappointment does not prove to be painful. There is no doubt that these objections are justified, but they are overestimated if one concludes from them that the essential characteristic mark of the comic has hitherto escaped our conception. What depreciates the general validity of these definitions are conditions which are indispensable for the origin of the comic pleasure, but which will be searched in vain for the nature of comic pleasure. The rejection of the objections and the explanations of the contradictions to the definitions of the comic will become easy for us, only after we trace back comic pleasure to the difference resulting from a comparison of two expenditures. Comic pleasure and the effect by which it is recognized—laughter, can originate only when this difference is no longer utilizable and when it is capable of discharge. We gain no pleasurable effect, or at most a flighty feeling of pleasure in which the comic does not appear, if the difference is put to other use as soon as it is recognized. Just as special precautions must be taken in wit, in order to guard against making new use of expenditure recognized as superfluous, so also can comic pleasure originate only under relations which fulfil this latter condition. The cases in which such differences of expenditure originate in our ideational life are therefore uncommonly numerous, while the cases in which the comic originates from them is comparatively very rare.

The Conditions of Isolation of the Comic

Two observations obtrude themselves upon the observer who reviews even only superficially the origin of comic pleasure from the difference of expenditure; first, that there are cases in which the comic appears regularly and as if necessarily; and, in contrast to these cases, others in which this appearance depends on the conditions of the case and on the viewpoint of the observer; but secondly, that unusually large differences very often triumph over unfavorable conditions, so that the comic feeling originates in spite of it. In reference to the first point one may set up two classes, the inevitable comic and the accidental comic, although one will have to be prepared from the beginning to find exceptions in the first class to the inevitableness of the comic. It would be tempting to follow the conditions which are essential to each class.

What is important in the second class are the conditions of which one may be designated as the “isolation” of the comic case. A closer analysis renders conspicuous relations something like the following:

a) The favorable condition for the origin of comic pleasure is brought about by a general happy disposition in which “one is in the mood for laughing.” In happy toxic states almost everything seems comic, which probably results from a comparison with the expenditure in normal conditions. For wit, the comic, and all similar methods of gaining pleasure from the psychic activities, are nothing but ways to regain this happy state—euphoria—from one single point, when it does not exist as a general disposition of the psyche.

b) A similar favorable condition is produced by the expectation of the comic or by putting one’s self in the right mood for comic pleasure. Hence when the intention to make things comical exists and when this feeling is shared by others, the differences required are so slight that they probably would have been overlooked had they been experienced in unpremeditated occurrences. He who decides to attend a comic lecture or a farce at the theater is indebted to this intention for laughing over things which in his everyday life would hardly produce in him a comic effect. He finally laughs at the recollection of having laughed, at the expectation of laughing, and at the appearance of the one who is to present the comic, even before the latter makes the attempt to make him laugh. It is for this reason that people admit that they are ashamed of that which made them laugh at the theater.

c) Unfavorable conditions for the comic result from the kind of psychic activity which may occupy the individual at the moment. Imaginative or mental activity tending towards serious aims disturbs the discharging capacity of the investing energies which the activity needs for its own displacements, so that only unexpected and great differences of expenditure can break through to form comic pleasure. All manner of mental processes far enough removed from the obvious to cause a suspension of ideational mimicry are unfavorable to the comic; in abstract contemplation there is hardly any room left for the comic, except when this form of thinking is suddenly interrupted.