Schopenhauer and humour  

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ON THE THEORY OF THE LUDICROUS

From The World as Will and Representation[2]

MY theory of the ludicrous also depends upon the op position 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 morales 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 Home 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,

1 This chapter is connected with 13 of 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 laugher, 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 every thing 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 sub ordinate 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 con nection 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 assist ance of the mental inertness of those readers who prefer always to remain in a passive condition, I will accommodate myself to them. Indeed in tins 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, etes-vous aussi sur Hafficke, ? " a hit which was received with universal laughter. For here the sub- sumption 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 Unzelmaun. In the Berlin theatre he was strictly forbidden to im provise. 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 VOL. ii. s

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 news paper of March 1851: " The band of Jewish swindlers to which we have referred were again delivered over to us with obligate 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, de scribes 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 tinder the conception of a rule which Horace has recommended in an aesthetical 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 utter ances, 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 w as 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. Eor 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 un educated people will laugh at such things ; for here the incongruity between what is thought and what is per ceived 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 pro cedure of the latter consists in this. It substitutes for the incidents and words of a serious poem or drama insignifi cant 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 con trast between what is perceived and what is thought appears very glaring. There is no lack of familiar ex amples 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 bonta de cavalicri 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 Ger many 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 con cluding 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 for bidden and immoral relation is subsumed, and yet cor rectly 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. Accord ingly wit, as a mental capacity, consists entirely in a facility for finding for every object that appears a concep tion 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 concep tion 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 observa tion of Voltaire : " J*ai cru remarquer aux spectacles, qu il ne s e leve presque jamais de ccs Eclats de rire universels, qu a I occasion d une M^PRISE" (Preface de I! Enfant Prodiyue). 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 con ception, " 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 them selves 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 concep tion, " 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 Munch- hausenisms 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 Munchhausen, 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., some times 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 ; more over 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 divert ing 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 serious ness 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 con formity of the two to each other, which is at least aimed at. But if now the joke is concealed behind serious ness, 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 in voluntarily 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 accom modation, 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 con cealed 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 serious ness, 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 predomi nance of the subjective over the objective in the appre hension 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 serious ness 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 them 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 homorous is generally iised 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.

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