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.[78]
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.
d) The occasion for releasing comic pleasure vanishes when the attention
is fixed on the comparison capable of giving rise to the comic. Under
such circumstances the comic force is lost from that which is otherwise
sure to produce a comic effect. A movement or a mental activity cannot
become comical to him whose interest is fixed at the time of comparing
this movement with a standard which distinctly presents itself to him.
Thus the examiner does not see the comical in the nonsense produced by
the student in his ignorance; he is simply annoyed by it, whereas the
offender’s classmates who are more interested in his chances of passing
the examination than in what he knows, laugh heartily over the same
nonsense. The teacher of dancing or gymnastics seldom has any eyes for
the comic movements of his pupils, and the preacher entirely loses sight
of humanity’s defects of character, which the writer of comedy brings
out with so much effect. The comic process cannot stand examination by
the attention, it must be able to proceed absolutely unnoticed in a
manner similar to wit. But for good reasons, it would contradict the
nomenclature of “conscious processes” which I have used in _The
Interpretation of Dreams_, if one wished to call it of necessity
_unconscious_. It rather belongs to the _foreconscious_, and one may use
the fitting name “automatic” for all those processes which are enacted
in the foreconscious and dispense with the attention energy which is
connected with consciousness. The process of comparison of the
expenditures must remain automatic if it is to produce comic pleasure.
_Conditions Disturbing the Discharge_
e) It is exceedingly disturbing to the comic if the case from which it
originates gives rise at the same time to a marked release of affect.
The discharge of the affective difference is then as a rule excluded.
Affects, disposition, and the attitude of the individual in occasional
cases make it clear that the comic comes or goes with the viewpoint of
the individual person; that only in exceptional cases is there an
absolute comic. The dependence or relativity of the comic is therefore
much greater than of wit, which never happens but is regularly made, and
at its production one may already give attention to the conditions under
which it finds acceptance. But affective development is the most
intensive of the conditions which disturb the comic, the significance of
which is well known.[79] It is therefore said that the comic feeling
comes most in tolerably indifferent cases which evince no strong
feelings or interests. Nevertheless it is just in cases with affective
release that one may witness the production of a particularly strong
expenditure-difference in the automatism of discharge. When Colonel
Butler answers Octavio’s admonitions with “bitter laughter,” exclaiming:
“Thanks from the house of Austria!”
his bitterness has thus not prevented the laughter which results from
the recollection of the disappointment which he believes he has
experienced; and on the other hand, the magnitude of this disappointment
could not have been more impressively depicted by the poet than by
showing it capable of affecting laughter in the midst of the storm of
unchained affects. It is my belief that this explanation may be
applicable in all cases in which laughing occurs on other than
pleasurable occasions, and in conjunction with exceedingly painful or
tense affects.
f) If we also mention that the development of the comic pleasure can be
promoted by means of any other pleasurable addition to the case which
acts like a sort of contact-effect (after the manner of the
fore-pleasure principle in the tendency-wit), then we have discussed
surely not all the conditions of comic pleasure, yet enough of them to
serve our purpose. We then see that no other assumption so easily covers
these conditions, as well as the inconstancy and dependence of the comic
effect, as this: the assumption that comic pleasure is derived from the
discharge of a difference, which under many conditions can be diverted
to a different use than discharge.
It still remains to give a thorough consideration of the comic of the
sexual and obscene, but we shall only skim over it with a few
observations. Here, too, we shall take the act of exposing one’s body as
the starting-point. An accidental exposure produces a comical effect on
us, because we compare the ease with which we attained the enjoyment of
this view with the great expenditure otherwise necessary for the
attainment of this object. The case thus comes nearer to the
naïve-comic, but it is simpler than the latter. In every case of
exhibitionism in which we are made spectators—or, in the case of the
smutty joke hearers,—we play the part of the third person, and the
person exposed is made comical. We have heard that it is the purpose of
wit to replace obscenity and in this manner to reopen a source of comic
pleasure that has been lost. On the contrary, spying out an exposure
forms no example of the comic for the one spying, because the effort he
exerts thereby abrogates the condition of comic pleasure; the only thing
remaining is the sexual pleasure in what is seen. If the spy relates to
another what he has seen, the person looked at again becomes comical,
because the viewpoint that predominates is that the expenditure was
omitted which would have been necessary for the concealment of the
private parts. At all events, the sphere of the sexual or obscene offers
the richest opportunities for gaining comic pleasure beside the
pleasurable sexual stimulation, as it exposes the person’s dependence on
his physical needs (degradation) or it can uncover behind the spiritual
love the physical demands of the same (unmasking.)
_The Psychogenesis of the Comic_
An invitation to seek the understanding of the comic in its
psychogenesis comes surprisingly from Bergson’s well written and
stimulating book _Laughter_. Bergson, whose formula for the conception
of the comic character has already become known to us—“mechanization of
life,” “the substitution of something mechanical for the
natural”—reaches by obvious associations from automatism to the
automaton, and seeks to trace a series of comic effects to the blurred
memories of children’s toys. In this connection he once reaches this
viewpoint, which, to be sure, he soon drops; he seeks to trace the comic
to the after-effect of childish pleasure. “Perhaps we ought even to
carry simplification still farther, and, going back to our earliest
recollection, try to discover in the games that amused us as children
the first faint traces of the combinations that make us laugh as
grown-up persons.”... “Above all, we are too apt to ignore the childish
element, so to speak, latent in most of our joyful emotions” (p. 67). As
we have now traced wit to that childish playing with words and thoughts
which is prohibited by the rational critic, we must be tempted to trace
also these infantile roots of the comic, conjectured by Bergson.
As a matter of fact we meet a whole series of conditions which seem most
promising, when we examine the relation of the comic to the child. The
child itself does not by any means seem comic to us, although its
character fulfills all conditions which, in comparison to our own, would
result in a comic difference. Thus we see the immoderate expenditure of
motion as well as the slight psychic expenditure, the control of the
psychic activities through bodily functions, and other features. The
child gives us a comic impression only when it does not behave as a
child but as an earnest grown-up, and even then it affects us only in
the same manner as other persons in disguise; but as long as it retains
the nature of the child our perception of it furnishes us a pure
pleasure, which perhaps recalls the comic. We call it naïve in so far as
it displays to us the absence of inhibitions, and we call naïve-comic
those of its utterances which in another we would have considered
obscene or witty.
On the other hand the child lacks all feeling for the comic. This
sentence seems to say no more than that this comic feeling, like many
others, first makes its appearance in the course of psychic development;
and that would by no means be remarkable, especially since we must admit
that it shows itself distinctly even during years which must be
accredited to childhood. Nevertheless it can be demonstrated that the
assertion that the child lacks feeling for the comic has a deeper
meaning than one would suppose. In the first place it will readily be
seen that it cannot be different, if our conception is correct, that the
comic feeling results from a difference of expenditure produced in the
effort to understand the other. Let us again take comic motion as an
example. The comparison which furnishes the difference reads as follows,
when put in conscious formulæ: “So he does it,” and: “So I would do it,”
or “So I have done it.” But the child lacks the standard contained in
the second sentence, it understands simply through imitation; it just
does it. Education of the child furnishes it with the standard: “So you
shall do it,” and if it now makes use of the same in comparisons, the
nearest conclusion is: “He has not done it right, and I can do it
better.” In this case it laughs at the other, it laughs at him with a
feeling of superiority. There is nothing to prevent us from tracing this
laughter also to a difference of expenditure; but according to the
analogy with the examples of laughter occurring in us we may conclude
that the comic feeling is not experienced by the child when it laughs as
an expression of superiority. It is a laughter of pure pleasure. In our
own case whenever the judgment of our own superiority occurs we smile
rather than laugh, or if we laugh, we are still able to distinguish
clearly this conscious realization of our superiority from the comic
which makes us laugh.
It is probably correct to say that in many cases which we perceive as
“comical” and which we cannot explain, the child laughs out of pure
pleasure, whereas the child’s motives are clear and assignable. If, for
instance, some one slips on the street and falls, we laugh because this
impression—we know not why—is comical. The child laughs in the same case
out of a feeling of superiority or out of joy over the calamity of
others. It amounts to saying: “You fell, but I did not.” Certain
pleasure motives of the child seems to be lost for us grown-ups, but as
a substitute for these we perceive under the same conditions the “comic”
feeling.
_The Infantile and the Comic_
If we were permitted to generalize, it would seem very tempting to
transfer the desired specific character of the comic into the awakening
of the infantile, and to conceive the comic as a regaining of “lost
infantile laughing.” One could then say, “I laugh every time over a
difference of expenditure between the other and myself, when I discover
in the other the child.” Or expressed more precisely, the whole
comparison leading to the comic would read as follows:
“He does it this way—I do it differently—
He does it just as I did when I was a child.”