Grim-humor, 372
Groos, 183, 184, 185, 195
Gross, 278
H
Harmless wit, 128, 211, 219, 222, 284
and tendency-wit, 130
Heine, 9, 15, 26, 43, 44, 47, 55, 57, 92, 94, 106, 109, 119, 122, 171,
215, 216, 223, 341
Heymans, 9, 215
Holmes, 37
Hugo, 373
Humor, 370
Mark Twain’s, 374
I
Imitations, 303, 322
Impulse to impart wit, 200
Indirect expression, 100
with allusion, 101
Infantile and the comic, 364
Inhibitions, 140, 197, 206, 230, 231, 236, 290
expenditure of, 180
Insults, 209
Invectives, 148, 277
Ironical wit, 100
Irony, 276
J
Jest, 197, 201, 211, 274, 284
Johnson, 45
Jokes, cynical, 164
good or poor, 182
Jewish, 59, 72, 97, 166, 218
smutty, 139, 140, 145, 233
K
Kant, 320
Kleinpaul, 198
Kraepelin, 7
L
Lassalle, 115
Laugh, 221
Laughter as a discharge, 228
its determination, 224, 226
Lessing, 97, 130
Libido, 141
Lichtenberg, 39, 78, 89, 95, 97, 104, 115, 118, 121, 122, 129, 132,
149, 218
Lipps, 3, 4, 6, 10, 30, 93, 215, 227, 254, 320, 326
M
Manifold application, 40, 45
Matthews, 44
Michelet, 78
Modification, 42
Moll, 141
Morality, 163
Motives, 214, 239
N
Naïve, 290
characteristics of, 295
examples of, 291
Negativism, 276
Nestroy, 120, 341
Nonsense, 72, 192, 200, 279
Nonsense-witticisms, 76
O
Obscene wit, 138, 203
Obscenity, 142
Omission, 82, 107, 232
Outdoing wit, 96, 97
P
Parody, 280, 324
Pascal, 337
Paul, 3, 7, 8, 18, 29, 301
Persons in tendency-wit, 144, 221, 222, 230, 231, 240
Perversion, 141
Phillips, 151
Play, 211
and jest, 195
on words, 40
Playing with words, 196
Pleasure in nonsense, 190, 271
mechanisms of wit, 177
sources, 150
Psychic energy, 227
Psychoneuroses, 147
Puns, 53
R
Recognition, 183
Regression, 259
Representation through the opposite, 93, 95
through the minute, 111, 112
Repression, 147, 205, 211
Riddle, 232
Rousseau, J. B., 91
Rousseau, J. J., 33
S
Sancho Panza, 216
Satire, 43, 137
Schnitzler, 42
Sense in nonsense, 73, 74, 75, 199
Sexual elements, 139, 140, 219
Shakespeare, 222
Shake-up rhymes, 129
Sky-larking, 192
Smutty jokes, 139, 145, 233
Society, 150
Sophism, 82, 83, 159
Sophistic displacement, 161
faulty thinking, 78, 79
Soulié, 57
Sound, similarity, 39
Spencer, 225
Spinoza, 106
Stettenheim, 343
Subjective determinations, 155, 156, 166, 215, 217
Substitutive formation, 20
T
Tendencies of wit, 127, 206
Tendency to economy, 49
Tendency-wit, 130
its effect, 210
Thought-wit, 128
its techniques, 154
Travesty, 280, 324
U
Ueberhorst, 91
Unconscious, 254, 255, 269, 279, 281, 329
and the infantile, 268
Unification, 45, 88, 117, 121, 188
Unmasking, 303, 324
V
Vischer, 3, 8, 128
Voltaire, 91
W
Winslow, 45
Wish fulfilment, 249, 253
Wit, 4
and comic, 4, 330
and dreams, 249, 273, 285
and rebellion against authority, 153
as an inspiration, 265
as a social process, 214
by word-division, 32
definitions of, 6, 7, 8
desire to impart it, 239
double-facedness of, 240
harmless, 128
hostile and obscene, 138
in the service of tendencies, 146
ironical, 100
its motives, 214
its subjective determinations, 155
its tendencies, 127
Wit, literature of, 134
outdoing, 96, 97
pleasure mechanisms of, 177, 230
psychogenesis of, 177, 195, 200
shallow, 131
skeptical, 172, 173
technique of, 14, 194, 240
Wit-work, its formula, 261
Witticism and riddle, 232
critical, 171
Witticisms, blasphemous, 171
Witty nonsense, 211, 212
Woman, unyieldingness of, 143
Word-division, 32, 33, 34
Word-pleasure, 190
Word-wit, 128, 131
-----
Footnote 1:
Monograph Series, Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases Pub. Co., 2nd
Ed., 1912.
Footnote 2:
Monograph Series, Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases Pub. Co., 2nd
Ed., 1916.
Footnote 3:
The Macmillan Co., New York, and Allen &
Unwin, London.
Footnote 4:
The Macmillan Co., New York, and T. Fisher Unwin, London.
Footnote 5:
This expression is used advisedly in order to distinguish it from
other methods of “analysis,” which Professor Freud fully disavows. Cf.
_The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement_, translated by A. A.
Brill, _The Psychoanalytic Review_, June-Sept., 1916.
Footnote 6:
Cf. the works of Freud, Abraham, Rank, and others.
Footnote 7:
Cf. Freud: _Totem and Taboo_, a translation in preparation, and the
works of Jones, Rank and Sachs, Jung, and Storfer.
Footnote 8:
Cf. Freud, Berny, Rank, and Sachs, and Sperber.
Footnote 9:
Cf. Freud: _Leonardo da Vinci_, a translation in preparation, and the
works of many others.
Footnote 10:
Cf. _v._ Hug-Hellmuth: _Aus dem Seelenleben des Kindes_, and the works
of Jones, Pfister, and many others.
Footnote 11:
Cf. the works of Freud, Putnam, Hitschmann, Winterstein, and others.
Footnote 12:
_Beiträge zur Aesthetik_, edited by Theodor Lipps and Richard Maria
Werner, VI,—a book to which I am indebted for the courage and capacity
to undertake this attempt.
Footnote 13:
J. V. Falke: _Lebenserinnerungen_, 1897.
Footnote 14:
Since this joke will occupy us again and we do not wish to disturb the
discussion following here, we shall find occasion later to point out a
correction in Lipps’s given interpretation which follows our own.
Footnote 15:
The same holds true for Lipps’s interpretation.
Footnote 16:
_Psychanalysis_: Its Theories and Application, 2nd Ed., p. 331.
Footnote 17:
This same witticism was supposed to have been coined before by Heine
concerning Alfred de Musset.
Footnote 18:
One of the complications involved in the technique of this example
lies in the fact that the modification through which the omitted abuse
is substituted is to be taken as an allusion to the latter, for it
leads to it only through a process of deduction.
Footnote 19:
Another factor which I shall mention later on is also effective in the
technique of this witticism. It has to do with the inner character of
the modification (representation through the opposite—contradiction).
The technique of wit does not hesitate to make use simultaneously of
several means, with which, however, we can only become acquainted in
their sequential order.
Footnote 20:
Translation of 4th Ed. by A. A. Brill, the Macmillan Co., New York,
and Allen &
Unwin, London.
Footnote 21:
_The Interpretation of Dreams_, p. 280.
Footnote 22:
Cited by Brill: _Psychanalysis_, p. 335.
Footnote 23:
l. c., p. 334.
Footnote 24:
The excellence of these jokes depends upon the fact that they, at the
same time, present another technical means of a much higher order.
Footnote 25:
Given by Translator.
Footnote 26:
This resembles an excellent joke of Oliver Wendell Holmes cited by
Brill: “Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust.” A
contradiction is here announced which does not appear. At all events
it is a good example of the untranslatableness of the witticisms of
such technique.
Footnote 27:
Brill cites a very analogous modification wit: _Amantes—Amentes_
(lovers—lunatics).
Footnote 28:
Compare here K. Fischer (p. 85), who applies the term “double meaning”
to those witticisms in which both meanings are not equally prominent,
but where one overshadows the other. I have applied this term
differently. Such a nomenclature is a matter of choice. Usage of
speech has rendered no definite decision about them.
Footnote 29:
L. c., page 339.
Footnote 30:
Heine’s answer is a combination of two wit-techniques—a displacement
and an allusion—for he does not say directly: “He is an ox.”
Footnote 31:
The word “take,” owing to its meanings, lends itself very well towards
the formation of plays upon words, a pure example of which I wish to
cite as a contrast to the displacement mentioned above. While walking
with his friend, in front of a café, a well-known stock-plunger and
bank director made this proposal: “Let us go in and take something.”
His friend held him back and said: “My dear sir, remember there are
people in there.”
Footnote 32:
For the latter see a later chapter. It will perhaps not be superfluous
to add here a few words for better understanding. The displacement
regularly occurs between a statement and an answer, and turns the
stream of thought to a direction different from the one started in the
statement. The justification for separating the displacement from the
double meaning is best seen in the examples where both are combined,
that is, where the wording of the statement admits of a double meaning
which was not intended by the speaker, but which reveals in the answer
the way to the displacement (see examples).
Footnote 33:
See Chapter III.
Footnote 34:
A similar nonsense technique results when the joke aims to maintain a
connection which seems to be removed through the special conditions of
its content. A joke of this sort is related by J. Falke (l. c.): “_Is
this the place where the Duke of Wellington spoke these words?_”
“_Yes, this is the place; but he never spoke these words._”
Footnote 35:
Following an example of the _Greek Anthology_.
Footnote 36:
Cf. my _Interpretation of Dreams_, Chap. VI, _The Dream Work_,
translated by A. A. Brill, The Macmillan Co., New York, and Allen
& Unwin, London.
Footnote 37:
The word tendency encountered hereafter in the expression
“Tendency-Wit” (Tendenz Witz) is used adjectively in the same sense as
in the familiar phrase “Tendency Play.”
Footnote 38:
Cf. my _Psychopathology of Everyday Life_, translated by A. A. Brill,
The Macmillan Co., New York, and T. Fisher Unwin, London.
Footnote 39:
Cf. _Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex_, 2nd Ed., 1916,
translated by A. A. Brill, Monograph Series, _Journal of Nervous and
Mental Diseases_.
Footnote 40:
Moll’s _Kontrektationstrieb_ (Untersuchungen über die Libido
sexualies, 1898).
Footnote 41:
It is the same mechanism that controls “slips of the tongue” and other
phenomena of self-betrayal. Cf. _The Psychopathology of Everyday
Life_.
Footnote 42:
“There is nothing certain about to-morrow,” Lorenzo del Medici.
Footnote 43:
See his essays in the _Politisch-anthropologischen Revue_, II, 1903.
Footnote 44:
An habitual beggar.
Footnote 45:
If I may be permitted to anticipate what later is discussed in the
text I can here throw some light upon the condition which seems to be
authoritative in the usage of language when it is a question of
calling a joke “good” or “poor.” If by means of a double meaning or
slightly modified word I have gotten from one idea to another by a
short route, and if this does not also simultaneously result in
senseful association between the two ideas, then I have made a “poor”
joke. In this poor joke one word or the “point” forms the only
existing association between the two widely separated ideas. The joke
“Home-Roulard” used above is such an example. But a “good” joke
results if the infantile expectation is right in the end and if with
the similarity of the word another essential similarity in meaning is
really simultaneously produced—as in the examples Traduttore—Traditore
(translator—traitor), and Amantes—Amentes (lovers—lunatics). The two
disparate ideas which are here linked by an outer association are held
together besides by a senseful connection which expresses an important
relationship between them. The outer association only replaces the
inner connection; it serves to indicate the latter or to clarify it.
Not only does “translator” sound somewhat similar to “traitor,” but he
is a sort of a traitor whose claims to that name are good. The same
may be said of Amantes—Amentes. Not only do the words bear a
resemblance, but the similarity between “love” and “lunacy” has been
noted from time immemorial.
The distinction made here agrees with the differentiation, to be made
later, between a “witticism” and a “jest.” However, it would not be
correct to exclude examples like Home-Roulard from the discussion of
the nature of wit. As soon as we take into consideration the peculiar
pleasure of wit, we discover that the “poor” witticisms are by no
means poor as witticisms, i.e., they are by no means unsuited for the
production of pleasure.
Footnote 46:
_Die Spiele der Menschen_, 1899, p. 153.
Footnote 47:
_Vorschule der Aesthetik_, 1, XVII.
Footnote 48:
Chapter XVII.
Footnote 49:
Kleinpaul: _Die Rätsel der Sprache_, 1890.
Footnote 50:
_Vorschule der Aesthetik_, Vol. 1, V, p. 51, 2nd Ed., Leipzig, 1897.
Footnote 51:
The nonsense-witticisms, which have been somewhat slighted in this
treatise, deserve a short supplementary comment.
In view of the significance attributed by our conception to the factor
“sense in nonsense,” one might be tempted to demand that every
witticism should be a nonsense-joke. But this is not necessary,
because only the play with thoughts inevitably leads to nonsense,
whereas the other source of wit-pleasure, the play with words, makes
this impression incidental and does not regularly invoke the criticism
connected with it. The double root of wit-pleasure—from the play with
words and thoughts, which corresponds to the most important division
into word- and thought-witticisms—sets its face against a short
formulation of general principles about wit as a tangible aggravation
of difficulties. The play with words produces laughter, as is well
known, in consequence of the factor of recognition described above,
and therefore suffers suppression only in a small degree. The play
with thoughts cannot be motivated through such pleasure: it has
suffered a very energetic suppression and the pleasure which it can
give is only the pleasure of released inhibitions. Accordingly one may
say that wit-pleasure shows a kernel of the original play-pleasure and
a shell of removal-pleasure. Naturally we do not grant that the
pleasure in nonsense-wit is due to the fact that we have succeeded in
making nonsense despite the suppression, while we do notice that the
play with words gives us pleasure. Nonsense, which has remained fixed
in thought-wit, acquires secondarily the function of stimulating our
attention through confusion, it serves as a reinforcement of the
effect of wit, but only when it is insistent, so that the confusion
can anticipate the intellect by a definite fraction of time. That
nonsense in wit may also be employed to represent a judgment contained
within the thought has been demonstrated by the example on p. 73. But
even this is not the primal signification of nonsense in wit.
A series of wit-like productions for which we have no appropriate
name, but which may lay claim to the designation of “witty nonsense,”
may be added to the nonsense-jokes. They are very numerous, but I
shall cite only two examples: As the fish was served to a guest at the
table he put both hands twice into the mayonnaise and then ran them
through his hair. Being looked at by his neighbor with astonishment he
seemed to have noticed his mistake and excused himself, saying:
“Pardon me, I thought it was spinach.”
Or: “Life is like a suspension bridge,” said the one. “How is that?”
asked the other. “How should I know?” was the answer.
These extreme examples produce an effect through the fact that they
give rise to the expectation of wit, so that one makes the effort to
find the hidden sense behind the nonsense. But none is found, they are
really nonsense. Under that deception it was possible for one moment
to liberate the pleasure in nonsense. These witticisms are not
altogether without tendencies, they furnish the narrator a certain
pleasure in that they deceive and annoy the hearer. The latter then
calms his anger by resolving that he himself should take the place of
the narrator.
Footnote 52:
H. Spencer, _The Physiology of Laughter_ (first published in
_Macmillan’s Magazine_ for March, 1860), Essays, Vol. 11, 1901.
Footnote 53:
Different points in this declaration would demand an exhaustive
inquiry into an investigation of the pleasure of the comic, a thing
that other authors have already done, and which, at all events, does
not touch our discussion. It seems to me that Spencer was not happy in
his explanation of why the discharge happens to find just that path,
the excitement of which results in the physical picture of laughter. I
should like to add one single contribution to the subject of the
physiological explanation of laughter, that is, to the derivation or
interpretation of the muscular actions that characterize laughter—a
subject that has been often treated before and since Darwin, but which
has never been conclusively settled. According to the best of my
knowledge the grimaces and contortions of the corners of the mouth
that characterize laughter appear first in the satisfied and satiated
nursling when he drowsily quits the breasts. There it is a correct
motion of expression since it bespeaks the determination to take no
more nourishment, an “enough,” so to speak, or rather a “more than
enough.” This primal sense of pleasurable satiation may have furnished
the smile, which ever remains the basic phenomenon of laughter, the
later connection with the pleasurable processes of discharge.
Footnote 54:
Cf. _The Interpretation of Dreams_, Chap. VII, also _On the Psychic
Force_, etc., in the above cited book of Lipps (p. 123), where he
says: “This is the general principle: The dominant factors of the
psychic life are not represented by the contents of consciousness but
by those psychic processes which are unconscious. The task of
psychology, provided it does not limit itself to a mere description of
the content of consciousness, must also consist of revealing the
nature of these unconscious processes from the nature of the contents
of consciousness and its temporal relationship. Psychology must itself
be a theory of these processes. But such a psychology will soon find
that there exist quite a number of characteristics of these processes
which are unrepresented in the corresponding contents of
consciousness.”
Footnote 55:
Heymans (_Zeitschrift für Psychol._, XI) has taken up the viewpoint of
the nascent state in a somewhat different connection.
Footnote 56:
Through an example of displacement-wit I desire to discuss another
interesting character of the technique of wit. The genial actress
Gallmeyer when once asked how old she was is said to have answered
this unwelcome question with abashed and downcast eyes, by saying, “In
Brünn.” This is a very good example of displacement. Having been asked
her age, she replied by naming the place of her birth, thus
anticipating the next query, and in this manner she wishes to imply:
“This is a question which I prefer to pass by.” And still we feel that
the character of the witticism does not here come to expression
undimmed. The deviation from the question is too obvious; the
displacement is much too conspicuous. Our attention understands
immediately that it is a matter of an intentional displacement. In
other displacement-witticisms the displacement is disguised and our
attention is riveted by the effort to discover it. In one of the
displacement-witticisms (p. 69) the reply to the recommendation of the
horse—“What in the world should I do in Monticello at 6:30 in the
morning?”—the displacement is also an obtrusive one, but as a
substitute for it it acts upon the attention in a senseless and
confusing manner, whereas in the interrogation of the actress we know
immediately how to dispose of her displacement answer.
The so-called “facetious questions” which may make use of the best
techniques deviate from wit in other ways. An example of the facetious
question with displacement is the following: “What is a cannibal who
devours his father and mother?—Answer: An orphan.—And when he has
devoured all his other relatives?—Sole-heir.—And where can such a
monster ever find sympathy?—In the dictionary under S.” The facetious
questions are not full witticisms because the required witty answers
cannot be guessed like the allusions, omissions, etc., of wit.
Footnote 57:
Cf. _The Interpretation of Dreams_, Chapter VII.
Footnote 58:
Besides the dream-work and the technique of wit I have been able to
demonstrate condensation as a regular and significant process in
another psychic occurrence, in the mechanism of normal (not purposive)
forgetting. Singular impressions put difficulties in the way of
forgetting; impressions in any way analogous are forgotten by becoming
fused at their points of contact. The confusion of analogous
impressions is one of the first steps in forgetting.
Footnote 59:
Many of my patients while under psychoanalytic treatment are wont to
prove regularly by their laughter that I have succeeded in
demonstrating faithfully to their conscious perception the veiled
unconscious; they laugh also when the content of what is disclosed
does not at all justify this laughter. To be sure, it is conditional
that they have approached this unconscious closely enough to grasp it
when the physician has conjectured it and presented it to them.
Footnote 60:
In doing this we must not forget to reckon with the distortion brought
about by the censor which is still active in the psychoses.
Footnote 61:
_The Interpretation of Dreams._
Footnote 62:
The character of the comical which is referred to as its “dryness”
also depends in the broadest sense upon the differentiation of the
things spoken from the antics accompanying it.
Footnote 63:
_The Interpretation of Dreams_, p. 296.
Footnote 64:
This very remarkable and still inadequately understood behavior of
antagonistic relationships is probably not without value for the
understanding of the symptom of negativism in neurotics and in the
insane. Cf. the two latest works on the subject: Bleuler, “Über die
negative Suggestibilität,” _Psych.-Neurol. Wochenschrift_, 1904, and
Otto Groos’s _Zur Differential diagnostik negativistischer Phänomene_,
also my review of the _Gegensinn der Urworte_, in _Jahrb. f.
Psychonalyse_ II, 1910.
Footnote 65:
An expression of G. T. Fechner’s which has acquired significance from
the point of view of my conception.
Footnote 66:
Given by Translator.
Footnote 67:
I have everywhere identified the naïve with the naïve-comic, a
practice which is certainly not permissible in all cases. But it is
sufficient for our purposes to study the characteristics of the naïve
as exhibited by the “naïve joke” and the “naïve obscenity.” It is our
intention to proceed from here with the investigation of the nature of
the comic.
Footnote 68:
Also Bergson (_Laughter_, An essay on the Meaning of the Comic,
translated by Brereton and Rothwell, The Macmillan Co., 1914) rejects
with sound arguments this sort of explanation of comic pleasure, which
has unmistakably been influenced by the effort to create an analogy to
the laughing of a person tickled. The explanation of comic pleasure by
Lipps which might, in connection with his conception of the comic, be
represented as an “unexpected trifle,” is of an entirely different
nature.
Footnote 69:
The recollection of this innervation expenditure will remain the
essential part of the idea of this motion, and there will always be
methods of thought in my psychic life in which the idea will be
represented by nothing else than this expenditure. In other
connections a substitute for this element may possibly be put in the
form of other ideas, for instance the visual idea of the object of the
motion, or it may be put in the form of the word-idea; and in certain
types of abstract thought a sign instead of the full content itself
may suffice.
Footnote 70:
“What one has not in his head,” as the saying goes, “he must have in
his legs.”
Footnote 71:
The problem has been greatly confused by the general conditions
determining the comic, whereby the comic pleasure is seen to have its
source now in a too-muchness and now in a not-enoughness.
Footnote 72:
Degradation: A. Bain (_The Emotions and the Will_, 2nd Ed., 1865)
states: “The occasion of the ludicrous is the degradation of some
person of interest possessing dignity, in circumstances that excite no
other strong emotion” (p. 248).
Footnote 73:
“Thus every conscious and clever evocation of the comic is called wit,
be it the comic of views or situations. Naturally we cannot use this
view of wit here.” Lipps, l. c., p. 78.
Footnote 74:
At the most this is inserted by the dreamer as an explanation.
Footnote 75:
l. c., p. 294.