Laughter, Henri Bergson [good novels to read txt] 📗

aspect of it; but each of the actors knows only one of

these aspects: hence the mistakes they make and the erroneous

judgments they pass both on what is going on around them and on what

they are doing themselves. We proceed from this erroneous judgment

to the correct one, we waver between the possible meaning and the

real, and it is this mental seesaw between two contrary

interpretations which is at first apparent in the enjoyment we

derive from an equivocal situation. It is natural that certain

philosophers should have been specially struck by this mental

instability, and that some of them should regard the very essence of

the ludicrous as consisting in the collision or coincidence of two

judgments that contradict each other. Their definition, however, is

far from meeting every case, and even when it does, it defines—not

the principle of the ludicrous, but only one of its more or less

distant consequences. Indeed, it is easy to see that the stage-made

misunderstanding is nothing but a particular instance of a far more

general phenomenon,—the reciprocal interference of independent

series, and that, moreover, it is not laughable in itself, but only

as a sign of such an interference.

 

As a matter of fact, each of the characters in every stage-made

misunderstanding has his setting in an appropriate series of events

which he correctly interprets as far as he is concerned, and which

give the key-note to his words and actions. Each of the series

peculiar to the several characters develop independently, but at a

certain moment they meet under such conditions that the actions and

words that belong to one might just as well belong to another. Hence

arise the misunderstandings and the equivocal nature of the

situation. But this latter is not laughable in itself, it is so only

because it reveals the coincidence of the two independent series.

The proof of this lies in the fact that the author must be

continually taxing his ingenuity to recall our attention to the

double fact of independence and coincidence. This he generally

succeeds in doing by constantly renewing the vain threat of

dissolving partnership between the two coinciding series. Every

moment the whole thing threatens to break down, but manages to get

patched up again; it is this diversion that excites laughter, far

more than the oscillation of the mind between two contradictory

ideas. It makes us laugh because it reveals to us the reciprocal

interference of two independent series, the real source of the comic

effect.

 

And so the stage-made misunderstanding is nothing more than one

particular instance, one means—perhaps the most artificial—of

illustrating the reciprocal interference of series, but it is not

the only one. Instead of two contemporary series, you might take one

series of events belonging to the past and another belonging to the

present: if the two series happen to coincide in our imagination,

there will be no resulting cross-purposes, and yet the same comic

effect will continue to take place. Think of Bonivard, captive in

the Castle of Chillon: one series of facts. Now picture to yourself

Tartarin, travelling in Switzerland, arrested and imprisoned: second

series, independent of the former. Now let Tartarin be manacled to

Bonivard’s chain, thus making the two stories seem for a moment to

coincide, and you will get a very amusing scene, one of the most

amusing that Daudet’s imagination has pictured. [Tartarin sur les

Alpes, by Daudet.] Numerous incidents of the mock-heroic style, if

analysed, would reveal the same elements. The transposition from the

ancient to the modern—always a laughable one—draws its inspiration

from the same idea. Labiche has made use of this method in every

shape and form. Sometimes he begins by building up the series

separately, and then delights in making them interfere with one

another: he takes an independent group—a wedding-party, for

instance—and throws them into altogether unconnected surroundings,

into which certain coincidences allow of their being foisted for the

time being. Sometimes he keeps one and the same set of characters

right through the play, but contrives that certain of these

characters have something to conceal—have, in fact, a secret

understanding on the point—in short, play a smaller comedy within

the principal one: at one moment, one of the two comedies is on the

point of upsetting the other; the next, everything comes right and

the coincidence between the two series is restored. Sometimes, even,

he introduces into the actual series a purely immaterial series of

events, an inconvenient past, for instance, that some one has an

interest in concealing, but which is continually cropping up in the

present, and on each occasion is successfully brought into line with

situations with which it seemed destined to play havoc. But in every

case we find the two independent series, and also their partial

coincidence.

 

We will not carry any further this analysis of the methods of light

comedy. Whether we find reciprocal interference of series,

inversion, or repetition, we see that the objective is always the

same—to obtain what we have called a MECHANISATION of life. You

take a set of actions and relations and repeat it as it is, or turn

it upside down, or transfer it bodily to another set with which it

partially coincides—all these being processes that consist in

looking upon life as a repeating mechanism, with reversible action

and interchangeable parts. Actual life is comedy just so far as it

produces, in a natural fashion, actions of the same kind,—

consequently, just so far as it forgets itself, for were it always

on the alert, it would be ever-changing continuity, irrevertible

progress, undivided unity. And so the ludicrous in events may be

defined as absentmindedness in things, just as the ludicrous in an

individual character always results from some fundamental

absentmindedness in the person, as we have already intimated and

shall prove later on. This absentmindedness in events, however, is

exceptional. Its results are slight. At any rate it is incurable, so

that it is useless to laugh at it. Therefore the idea would never

have occurred to any one of exaggerating that absentmindedness, of

converting it into a system and creating an art for it, if laughter

were not always a pleasure and mankind did not pounce upon the

slightest excuse for indulging in it. This is the real explanation

of light comedy, which holds the same relation to actual life as

does a jointed dancing-doll to a man walking,—being, as it is, an

artificial exaggeration of a natural rigidity in things. The thread

that binds it to actual life is a very fragile one. It is scarcely

more than a game which, like all games, depends on a previously

accepted convention. Comedy in character strikes far deeper roots

into life. With that kind of comedy we shall deal more particularly

in the final portion of our investigation. But we must first analyse

a certain type of the comic, in many respects similar to that of

light comedy: the comic in words.

II

There may be something artificial in making a special category for

the comic in words, since most of the varieties of the comic that we

have examined so far were produced through the medium of language.

We must make a distinction, however, between the comic EXPRESSED and

the comic CREATED by language. The former could, if necessary, be

translated from one language into another, though at the cost of

losing the greater portion of its significance when introduced into

a fresh society different in manners, in literature, and above all

in association of ideas. But it is generally impossible to translate

the latter. It owes its entire being to the structure of the

sentence or to the choice of the words. It does not set forth, by

means of language, special cases of absentmindedness in man or in

events. It lays stress on lapses of attention in language itself. In

this case, it is language itself that becomes comic.

 

Comic sayings, however, are not a matter of spontaneous generation;

if we laugh at them, we are equally entitled to laugh at their

author. This latter condition, however, is not indispensable, since

the saying or expression has a comic virtue of its own. This is

proved by the fact that we find it very difficult, in the majority

of these cases, to say whom we are laughing at, although at times we

have a dim, vague feeling that there is some one in the background.

 

Moreover, the person implicated is not always the speaker. Here it

seems as though we should draw an important distinction between the

WITTY (SPIRITUEL) and the COMIC. A word is said to be comic when it

makes us laugh at the person who utters it, and witty when it makes

us laugh either at a third party or at ourselves. But in most cases

we can hardly make up our minds whether the word is comic or witty.

All that we can say is that it is laughable.

 

Before proceeding, it might be well to examine more closely what is

meant by ESPRIT. A witty saying makes us at least smile;

consequently, no investigation into laughter would be complete did

it not get to the bottom of the nature of wit and throw light on the

underlying idea. It is to be feared, however, that this extremely

subtle essence is one that evaporates when exposed to the light.

 

Let us first make a distinction between the two meanings of the word

wit ESPRIT, the broader one and the more restricted. In the broader

meaning of the word, it would seem that what is called wit is a

certain DRAMATIC way of thinking. Instead of treating his ideas as

mere symbols, the wit sees them, he hears them and, above all, makes

them converse with one another like persons. He puts them on the

stage, and himself, to some extent, into the bargain. A witty nation

is, of necessity, a nation enamoured of the theatre. In every wit

there is something of a poet—just as in every good reader there is

the making of an actor. This comparison is made purposely, because a

proportion might easily be established between the four terms. In

order to read well we need only the intellectual side of the actor’s

art; but in order to act well one must be an actor in all one’s soul

and body. In just the same way, poetic creation calls for some

degree of self-forgetfulness, whilst the wit does not usually err in

this respect. We always get a glimpse of the latter behind what he

says and does. He is not wholly engrossed in the business, because

he only brings his intelligence into play. So any poet may reveal

himself as a wit when he pleases. To do this there will be no need

for him to acquire anything; it seems rather as though he would have

to give up something. He would simply have to let his ideas hold

converse with one another “for nothing, for the mere joy of the

thing!” [Footnote: “Pour rien, pour le plaisir” is a quotation

from Victor Hugo’s Marion Delorme] He would only have to unfasten

the double bond which keeps his ideas in touch with his feelings and

his soul in touch with life. In short, he would turn into a wit by

simply resolving to be no longer a poet in feeling, but only in

intelligence.

 

But if wit consists, for the most part, in seeing things SUB SPECIE

THEATRI, it is evidently capable of being specially directed to one

variety of dramatic art, namely, comedy. Here we have a more

restricted meaning of the term, and, moreover, the only one that

interests us from the point of view of the theory of laughter. What

is here called WIT is a gift for dashing off comic scenes in a few

strokes—dashing them off, however, so subtly, delicately and

rapidly,