My theory of the ludicrous also depends upon the opposition explained in
the preceding chapters between perceptible and abstract ideas, which I
have brought into such marked prominence. Therefore what has still to be
said in explanation of this theory finds its proper place here, although
according to the order of the text it would have to come later.
The problem of the origin, which is everywhere the same, and hence of the
peculiar significance of laughter, was already known to Cicero, but only
to be at once dismissed as insoluble (_De Orat._, ii. 58). The oldest
attempt known to me at a psychological explanation of laughter is to be
found in Hutcheson’s “Introduction into Moral Philosophy,” Bk. I., ch. i.
§ 14. A somewhat later anonymous work, “_Traité des Causes Physiques et
Morals du Rire_,” 1768, is not without merit as a ventilation of the
subject. Platner, in his “Anthropology,” § 894, has collected the opinions
of the philosophers from Hume to Kant who have attempted an explanation of
this phenomenon peculiar to human nature. Kant’s and Jean Paul’s theories
of the ludicrous are well known. I regard it as unnecessary to prove their
incorrectness, for whoever tries to refer given cases of the ludicrous to
them will in the great majority of instances be at once convinced of their
insufficiency.
According to my explanation given in the first volume, the source of the
ludicrous is always the paradoxical, and therefore unexpected, subsumption
of an object under a conception which in other respects is different from
it, and accordingly the phenomenon of laughter always signifies the sudden
apprehension of an incongruity between such a conception and the real
object thought under it, thus between the abstract and the concrete object
of perception. The greater and more unexpected, in the apprehension of the
laughter, this incongruity is, the more violent will be his laughter.
Therefore in everything that excites laughter it must always be possible
to show a conception and a particular, that is, a thing or event, which
certainly can be subsumed under that conception, and therefore thought
through it, yet in another and more predominating aspect does not belong
to it at all, but is strikingly different from everything else that is
thought through that conception. If, as often occurs, especially in
witticisms, instead of such a real object of perception, the conception of
a subordinate species is brought under the higher conception of the genus,
it will yet excite laughter only through the fact that the imagination
realises it, _i.e._, makes a perceptible representative stand for it, and
thus the conflict between what is thought and what is perceived takes
place. Indeed if we wish to understand this perfectly explicitly, it is
possible to trace everything ludicrous to a syllogism in the first figure,
with an undisputed _major_ and an unexpected _minor_, which to a certain
extent is only sophistically valid, in consequence of which connection the
conclusion partakes of the quality of the ludicrous.
In the first volume I regarded it as superfluous to illustrate this theory
by examples, for every one can do this for himself by a little reflection
upon cases of the ludicrous which he remembers. Yet, in order to come to
the assistance of the mental inertness of those readers who prefer always
to remain in a passive condition, I will accommodate myself to them.
Indeed in this third edition I wish to multiply and accumulate examples,
so that it may be indisputable that here, after so many fruitless earlier
attempts, the true theory of the ludicrous is given, and the problem which
was proposed and also given up by Cicero is definitely solved.
If we consider that an angle requires two lines meeting so that if they
are produced they will intersect each other; on the other hand, that the
tangent of a circle only touches it at one point, but at this point is
really parallel to it; and accordingly have present to our minds the
abstract conviction of the impossibility of an angle between the
circumference of a circle and its tangent; and if now such an angle lies
visibly before us upon paper, this will easily excite a smile. The
ludicrousness in this case is exceedingly weak; but yet the source of it
in the incongruity of what is thought and perceived appears in it with
exceptional distinctness. When we discover such an incongruity, the
occasion for laughter that thereby arises is, according as we pass from
the real, _i.e._, the perceptible, to the conception, or conversely from
the conception to the real, either a witticism or an absurdity, which in a
higher degree, and especially in the practical sphere, is folly, as was
explained in the text. Now to consider examples of the first case, thus of
wit, we shall first of all take the familiar anecdote of the Gascon at
whom the king laughed when he saw him in light summer clothing in the
depth of winter, and who thereupon said to the king: “If your Majesty had
put on what I have, you would find it very warm;” and on being asked what
he had put on, replied: “My whole wardrobe!” Under this last conception we
have to think both the unlimited wardrobe of a king and the single summer
coat of a poor devil, the sight of which upon his freezing body shows its
great incongruity with the conception. The audience in a theatre in Paris
once called for the “Marseillaise” to be played, and as this was not done,
began shrieking and howling, so that at last a commissary of police in
uniform came upon the stage and explained that it was not allowed that
anything should be given in the theatre except what was in the playbill.
Upon this a voice cried: “_Et vous, Monsieur, êtes-vous aussi sur
l’affiche?_”—a hit which was received with universal laughter. For here
the subsumption of what is heterogeneous is at once distinct and unforced.
The epigramme:
“Bav is the true shepherd of whom the Bible spake:
Though his flock be all asleep, he alone remains awake:”
subsumes, under the conception of a sleeping flock and a waking shepherd,
the tedious preacher who still bellows on unheard when he has sent all the
people to sleep. Analogous to this is the epitaph on a doctor: “Here lies
he like a hero, and those he has slain lie around him;” it subsumes under
the conception, honourable to the hero, of “lying surrounded by dead
bodies,” the doctor, who is supposed to preserve life. Very commonly the
witticism consists in a single expression, through which only the
conception is given, under which the case presented can be subsumed,
though it is very different from everything else that is thought under it.
So is it in “Romeo” when the vivacious Mercutio answers his friends who
promise to visit him on the morrow: “Ask for me to-morrow, and you shall
find me a grave man.” Under this conception a dead man is here subsumed;
but in English there is also a play upon the words, for “a grave man”
means both a serious man and a man of the grave. Of this kind is also the
well-known anecdote of the actor Unzelmann. In the Berlin theatre he was
strictly forbidden to improvise. Soon afterwards he had to appear on the
stage on horseback, and just as he came on the stage the horse dunged, at
which the audience began to laugh, but laughed much more when Unzelmann
said to the horse: “What are you doing? Don’t you know we are forbidden to
improvise?” Here the subsumption of the heterogeneous under the more
general conception is very distinct, but the witticism is exceedingly
happy, and the ludicrous effect produced by it excessively strong. To this
class also belongs the following announcement from Hall in a newspaper of
March 1851: “The band of Jewish swindlers to which we have referred were
again delivered over to us with obligato accompaniment.” This subsuming of
a police escort under a musical term is very happy, though it approaches
the mere play upon words. On the other hand, it is exactly a case of the
kind we are considering when Saphir, in a paper-war with the actor Angeli,
describes him as “Angeli, who is equally great in mind and body.” The
small statue of the actor was known to the whole town, and thus under the
conception “great” unusual smallness was presented to the mind. Also when
the same Saphir calls the airs of a new opera “good old friends,” and so
brings the quality which is most to be condemned under a conception which
is usually employed to commend. Also, if we should say of a lady whose
favour could be influenced by presents, that she knew how to combine the
_utile_ with the _dulci_. For here we bring the moral life under the
conception of a rule which Horace has recommended in an æsthetical
reference. Also if to signify a brothel we should call it the “modest
abode of quiet joys.” Good society, in order to be thoroughly insipid, has
forbidden all decided utterances, and therefore all strong expressions.
Therefore it is wont, when it has to signify scandalous or in any way
indecent things, to mitigate or extenuate them by expressing them through
general conceptions. But in this way it happens that they are more or less
incongruously subsumed, and in a corresponding degree the effect of the
ludicrous is produced. To this class belongs the use of _utile dulci_
referred to above, and also such expressions as the following: “He had
unpleasantness at the ball” when he was thrashed and kicked out; or, “He
has done too well” when he is drunk; and also, “The woman has weak
moments” if she is unfaithful to her husband, &c. Equivocal sayings also
belong to the same class. They are conceptions which in themselves contain
nothing improper, but yet the case brought under them leads to an improper
idea. They are very common in society. But a perfect example of a full and
magnificent equivocation is Shenstone’s incomparable epitaph on a justice
of the peace, which, in its high-flown lapidary style, seems to speak of
noble and sublime things, while under each of their conceptions something
quite different is to be subsumed, which only appears in the very last
word as the unexpected key to the whole, and the reader discovers with
loud laughter that he has only read a very obscene equivocation. In this
smooth-combed age it is altogether impossible to quote this here, not to
speak of translating it; it will be found in Shenstone’s poetical works,
under the title “Inscription.” Equivocations sometimes pass over into mere
puns, about which all that is necessary has been said in the text.
Further, the ultimate subsumption, ludicrous to all, of what in one
respect is heterogeneous, under a conception which in other respects
agrees with it, may take place contrary to our intention. For example, one
of the free negroes in North America, who take pains to imitate the whites
in everything, quite recently placed an epitaph over his dead child which
begins, “Lovely, early broken lily.” If, on the contrary, something real
and perceptible is, with direct intention, brought under the conception of
its opposite, the result is plain, common irony. For example, if when it
is raining hard we say, “Nice weather we are having to-day;” or if we say
of an ugly bride, “That man has found a charming treasure;” or of a knave,
“This honest man,” &c. &c. Only children and quite uneducated people will
laugh at such things; for here the incongruity between what is thought and
what is perceived is total. Yet just in this direct exaggeration in the
production of the ludicrous its fundamental character, incongruity,
appears very distinctly. This species of the ludicrous is, on account of
its exaggeration and distinct intention, in some respects related to
_parody_. The procedure of the latter consists in this. It substitutes for
the incidents and words of a serious poem or drama insignificant low
persons or trifling motives and actions. It thus subsumes the commonplace
realities which it sets forth under the lofty conceptions given in the
theme, under which in a certain respect they must come, while in other
respects they are very incongruous; and thereby the contrast between what
is perceived and what is thought appears very glaring. There is no lack of
familiar examples of this, and therefore I shall only give one, from the
“Zobeide” of Carlo Gozzi, act iv., scene 3, where the famous stanza of
Ariosto (_Orl. Fur._, i. 22), “_Oh gran bontà de’ cavalieri antichi_,”
&c., is put word for word into the mouth of two clowns who have just been
thrashing each other, and tired with this, lie quietly side by side. This
is also the nature of the application so popular in Germany of serious
verses, especially of Schiller, to trivial events, which clearly contains
a subsumption of heterogeneous things under the general conception which
the verse expresses. Thus, for example, when any one has displayed a very
characteristic trait, there will rarely be wanting some one to say, “From
that I know with whom I have to do.” But it was original and very witty of
a man who was in love with a young bride to quote to the newly married
couple (I know not how loudly) the concluding words of Schiller’s ballad,
“The Surety:”
“Let me be, I pray you,
In your bond the third.”
The effect of the ludicrous is here strong and inevitable, because under
the conceptions through which Schiller presents to the mind a moral and
noble relation, a forbidden and immoral relation is subsumed, and yet
correctly and without change, thus is thought through it. In all the
examples of wit given here we find that under a conception, or in general
an abstract thought, a real thing is, directly, or by means of a narrower
conception, subsumed, which indeed, strictly speaking, comes under it, and
yet is as different as possible from the proper and original intention and
tendency of the thought. Accordingly wit, as a mental capacity, consists
entirely in a facility for finding for every object that appears a
conception under which it certainly can be thought, though it is very
different from all the other objects which come under this conception.
The second species of the ludicrous follows, as we have mentioned, the
opposite path from the abstract conception to the real or perceptible
things thought through it. But this now brings to light any incongruity
with the conception which was overlooked, and hence arises an absurdity,
and therefore in the practical sphere a foolish action. Since the play
requires action, this species of the ludicrous is essential to comedy.
Upon this depends the observation of Voltaire: “_J’ai cru remarquer aux
spectacles, qu’il ne s’élève presque jamais de ces éclats de rire
universels, qu’à l’occasion d’une_ MÉPRISE” (_Preface de L’Enfant
Prodigue_). The following may serve as examples of this species of the
ludicrous. When some one had declared that he was fond of walking alone,
an Austrian said to him: “You like walking alone; so do I: therefore we
can go together.” He starts from the conception, “A pleasure which two
love they can enjoy in common,” and subsumes under it the very case which
excludes community. Further, the servant who rubbed a worn sealskin in his
master’s box with Macassar oil, so that it might become covered with hair
again; in doing which he started from the conception, “Macassar oil makes
hair grow.” The soldiers in the guard-room who allowed a prisoner who was
brought in to join in their game of cards, then quarrelled with him for
cheating, and turned him out. They let themselves be led by the general
conception, “Bad companions are turned out,” and forget that he is also a
prisoner, _i.e._, one whom they ought to hold fast. Two young peasants had
loaded their gun with coarse shot, which they wished to extract, in order
to substitute fine, without losing the powder. So one of them put the
mouth of the barrel in his hat, which he took between his legs, and said
to the other: “Now you pull the trigger slowly, slowly, slowly; then the
shot will come first.” He starts from the conception, “Prolonging the
cause prolongs the effect.” Most of the actions of Don Quixote are also
cases in point, for he subsumes the realities he encounters under
conceptions drawn from the romances of chivalry, from which they are very
different. For example, in order to support the oppressed he frees the
galley slaves. Properly all Münchhausenisms are also of this nature, only
they are not actions which are performed, but impossibilities, which are
passed off upon the hearer as having really happened. In them the fact is
always so conceived that when it is thought merely in the abstract, and
therefore comparatively _a priori_, it appears possible and plausible; but
afterwards, if we come down to the perception of the particular case, thus
_a posteriori_ the impossibility of the thing, indeed the absurdity of the
assumption, is brought into prominence, and excites laughter through the
evident incongruity of what is perceived and what is thought. For example,
when the melodies frozen up in the post-horn are thawed in the warm
room—when Münchhausen, sitting upon a tree during a hard frost, draws up
his knife which has dropped to the ground by the frozen jet of his own
water, &c. Such is also the story of the two lions who broke down the
partition between them during the night and devoured each other in their
rage, so that in the morning there was nothing to be found but the two
tails.
There are also cases of the ludicrous where the conception under which the
perceptible facts are brought does not require to be expressed or
signified, but comes into consciousness itself through the association of
ideas. The laughter into which Garrick burst in the middle of playing
tragedy because a butcher in the front of the pit, who had taken off his
wig to wipe the sweat from his head, placed the wig for a while upon his
large dog, who stood facing the stage with his fore paws resting on the
pit railings, was occasioned by the fact that Garrick started from the
conception of a spectator, which was added in his own mind. This is the
reason why certain animal forms, such as apes, kangaroos, jumping-hares,
&c., sometimes appear to us ludicrous because something about them
resembling man leads us to subsume them under the conception of the human
form, and starting from this we perceive their incongruity with it.
Now the conceptions whose observed incongruity with the perceptions moves
us to laughter are either those of others or our own. In the first case we
laugh at others, in the second we feel a surprise, often agreeable, at the
least amusing. Therefore children and uneducated people laugh at the most
trifling things, even at misfortunes, if they were unexpected, and thus
convicted their preconceived conception of error. As a rule laughing is a
pleasant condition; accordingly the apprehension of the incongruity
between what is thought and what is perceived, that is, the real, gives us
pleasure, and we give ourselves up gladly to the spasmodic convulsions
which this apprehension excites. The reason of this is as follows. In
every suddenly appearing conflict between what is perceived and what is
thought, what is perceived is always unquestionably right; for it is not
subject to error at all, requires no confirmation from without, but
answers for itself. Its conflict with what is thought springs ultimately
from the fact that the latter, with its abstract conceptions, cannot get
down to the infinite multifariousness and fine shades of difference of the
concrete. This victory of knowledge of perception over thought affords us
pleasure. For perception is the original kind of knowledge inseparable
from animal nature, in which everything that gives direct satisfaction to
the will presents itself. It is the medium of the present, of enjoyment
and gaiety; moreover it is attended with no exertion. With thinking the
opposite is the case; it is the second power of knowledge, the exercise of
which always demands some, and often considerable, exertion. Besides, it
is the conceptions of thought that often oppose the gratification of our
immediate desires, for, as the medium of the past, the future, and of
seriousness, they are the vehicle of our fears, our repentance, and all
our cares. It must therefore be diverting to us to see this strict,
untiring, troublesome governess, the reason, for once convicted of
insufficiency. On this account then the mien or appearance of laughter is
very closely related to that of joy.
On account of the want of reason, thus of general conceptions, the brute
is incapable of laughter, as of speech. This is therefore a prerogative
and characteristic mark of man. Yet it may be remarked in passing that his
one friend the dog has an analogous characteristic action peculiar to him
alone in distinction from all other brutes, the very expressive, kindly,
and thoroughly honest fawning and wagging of its tail. But how favourably
does this salutation given him by nature compare with the bows and
simpering civilities of men. At least for the present, it is a thousand
times more reliable than their assurance of inward friendship and
devotion.
The opposite of laughing and joking is _seriousness_. Accordingly it
consists in the consciousness of the perfect agreement and congruity of
the conception, or thought, with what is perceived, or the reality. The
serious man is convinced that he thinks the things as they are, and that
they are as he thinks them. This is just why the transition from profound
seriousness to laughter is so easy, and can be effected by trifles. For
the more perfect that agreement assumed by seriousness may seem to be, the
more easily is it destroyed by the unexpected discovery of even a slight
incongruity. Therefore the more a man is capable of entire seriousness,
the more heartily can he laugh. Men whose laughter is always affected and
forced are intellectually and morally of little worth; and in general the
way of laughing, and, on the other hand, the occasions of it, are very
characteristic of the person. That the relations of the sexes afford the
easiest materials for jokes always ready to hand and within the reach of
the weakest wit, as is proved by the abundance of obscene jests, could not
be if it were not that the deepest seriousness lies at their foundation.
That the laughter of others at what we do or say seriously offends us so
keenly depends on the fact that it asserts that there is a great
incongruity between our conceptions and the objective realities. For the
same reason, the predicate “ludicrous” or “absurd” is insulting. The laugh
of scorn announces with triumph to the baffled adversary how incongruous
were the conceptions he cherished with the reality which is now revealing
itself to him. Our own bitter laughter at the fearful disclosure of the
truth through which our firmly cherished expectations are proved to be
delusive is the active expression of the discovery now made of the
incongruity between the thoughts which, in our foolish confidence in man
or fate, we entertained, and the truth which is now unveiled.
The _intentionally_ ludicrous is the _joke_. It is the effort to bring
about a discrepancy between the conceptions of another and the reality by
disarranging one of the two; while its opposite, _seriousness_, consists
in the exact conformity of the two to each other, which is at least aimed
at. But if now the joke is concealed behind seriousness, then we have
_irony_. For example, if with apparent seriousness we acquiesce in the
opinions of another which are the opposite of our own, and pretend to
share them with him, till at last the result perplexes him both as to us
and them. This is the attitude of Socrates as opposed to Hippias,
Protagoras, Gorgias, and other sophists, and indeed often to his
collocutors in general. The converse of irony is accordingly seriousness
concealed behind a joke, and this is _humour_. It might be called the
double counterpoint of irony. Explanations such as “Humour is the
interpenetration of the finite and the infinite” express nothing more than
the entire incapacity for thought of those who are satisfied with such
empty phrases. Irony is objective, that is, intended for another; but
humour is subjective, that is, it primarily exists only for one’s own
self. Accordingly we find the masterpieces of irony among the ancients,
but those of humour among the moderns. For, more closely considered,
humour depends upon a subjective, yet serious and sublime mood, which is
involuntarily in conflict with a common external world very different from
itself, which it cannot escape from and to which it will not give itself
up; therefore, as an accommodation, it tries to think its own point of
view and that external world through the same conceptions, and thus a
double incongruity arises, sometimes on the one side, sometimes on the
other, between these concepts and the realities thought through them.
Hence the impression of the intentionally ludicrous, thus of the joke, is
produced, behind which, however, the deepest seriousness is concealed and
shines through. Irony begins with a serious air and ends with a smile;
with humour the order is reversed. The words of Mercutio quoted above may
serve as an example of humour. Also in “Hamlet”—_Polonius_: “My honourable
lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you. _Hamlet_: You cannot, sir,
take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal, except my
life, except my life, except my life.” Again, before the introduction of
the play at court, Hamlet says to Ophelia: “What should a man do but be
merry? for, look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died
within these two hours. _Ophelia_: Nay, ’tis twice two months, my lord.
_Hamlet_: So long? Nay, then let the devil wear black, for I’ll have a
suit of sables.”
Again, in Jean Paul’s “Titan,” when Schoppe, melancholy and now brooding
over himself, frequently looking at his hands, says to himself, “There
sits a lord in bodily reality, and I in him; but who is such?” Heinrich
Heine appears as a true humourist in his “_Romancero_.” Behind all his
jokes and drollery we discern a profound seriousness, which is ashamed to
appear unveiled. Accordingly humour depends upon a special kind of mood or
temper (German, _Laune_, probably from _Luna_) through which conception in
all its modifications, a decided predominance of the subjective over the
objective in the apprehension of the external world, is thought. Moreover,
every poetical or artistic presentation of a comical, or indeed even a
farcical scene, through which a serious thought yet glimmers as its
concealed background, is a production of humour, thus is humorous. Such,
for example, is a coloured drawing of Tischbein’s, which represents an
empty room, lighted only by the blazing fire in the grate. Before the fire
stands a man with his coat off, in such a position that his shadow, going
out from his feet, stretches across the whole room. Tischbein comments
thus on the drawing: “This is a man who has succeeded in nothing in the
world, and who has made nothing of it; now he rejoices that he can throw
such a large shadow.” Now, if I had to express the seriousness that lies
concealed behind this jest, I could best do so by means of the following
verse taken from the Persian poem of Anwari Soheili:—
“If thou hast lost possession of a world,
Be not distressed, for it is nought;
Or hast thou gained possession of a world,
Be not o’erjoyed, for it is nought.
Our pains, our gains, all pass away;
Get thee beyond the world, for it is nought.”
That at the present day the word humorous is generally used in German
literature in the sense of comical arises from the miserable desire to
give things a more distinguished name than belongs to them, the name of a
class that stands above them. Thus every inn must be called a hotel, every
money-changer a banker, every concert a musical academy, the merchant’s
counting-house a bureau, the potter an artist in clay, and therefore also
every clown a humourist. The word _humour_ is borrowed from the English to
denote a quite peculiar species of the ludicrous, which indeed, as was
said above, is related to the sublime, and which was first remarked by
them. But it is not intended to be used as the title for all kinds of
jokes and buffoonery, as is now universally the case in Germany, without
opposition from men of letters and scholars; for the true conception of
that modification, that tendency of the mind, that child of the sublime
and the ridiculous, would be too subtle and too high for their public, to
please which they take pains to make everything flat and vulgar. Well,
“high words and a low meaning” is in general the motto of the noble
present, and accordingly now-a-days he is called a humourist who was
formerly, called a buffoon.