Національна Академія Мистецтв України Інститут культурології

The vey fact of attested discovery of falsification and the opportunity of disrobing the lie marks the protagonist’s victory. In the middle of the tension of struggle it becomes possible to detect still one detail of deceit and to attest the vicious nature of antagonists. Such situation is often to encounter in various comedies. The surprise brings essential consequences as in the scene between Joan of Arc and Robert de Baudricourt in B. Shaw’s “Saint Joan” (1).

Here the presumption is put to shame. The self-conceited feudal gets the confirmation of the serious support delivered to the simple girl. His embarrassment follows that marks the initial step of heroine to her victories. One could compare such pathetic triumphant smile with the famous Archimedean exclamation and designate this pathetic humor as the heuristic humor. Such smile of insight correlates with the habitual use of smile as a silent answer of confirmation. It marks the moment of discovery as the satisfied curiosity. Another sample of bitter humor can be a concomitant circumstance to the revelation of unsolved contradictions as in the tragic-comical line from S. Rudansky’s “King Nightingale”.

The situation of the “powerless power” marks here the difficulty to be overcome. Meanwhile the very fact of this contradiction becoming made the ingredient of consciousness betrays its humoristic effect. As far as the consequences become predictable they lose their terrifying properties. The situation discloses its bitter humoristic due to its comprehensibility despite its unsolvable state. It is a bitter smile that becomes concomitant satellite to this contradictory situation.

One deals with virtual phenomena still to be detected and explored that humor gives hint to. These synthetic advantages of humor provide its developmental capacities for comedy as the indispensable cognitive power. Laughter and weep can be said to be united within humor due to its disclosure of virtual reality¹²⁸⁵. Meanwhile one has to bear in mind that weep can be aroused also with a mere cowardice and not with the sorrow as well as laughter can be produced due to stupidity. It is here to stress again the importance of cognitive vs. existential aspect for humor that promotes involving participants in a hazardous play without endangering personal conditions and therefore entails arrivisme as the particular feature of scenic exhibition. The jocular struggle arises that has not the meaning of a genuine contest. The opposition of manifestation vs. latency as one of the essential comical properties is here revealed so that what has an outlook of an assault has actually the meaning of a friendly contact. The definition of comedy as an unserious risk of cognitive nature without existential consequences as in an effect of a “predator in a cage”¹²⁸⁶ (which will by no means be funny when encountered out of the cage) presupposes the representation of such phenomena that are distanced from reality within cognitive space. This effect attests the difference between the object and its representation, therefore it doesn’t go about any sympathy to the ugliness represented, the sympathy concerns the truth of depiction and not the object itself. One deals here with the passive object of contemplation instead of the participants of action so that one passes from existential to cognitive conditions. In radical difference from fear and terror that are of existential nature smile designates the revelation of mystery and in particular it marks the refutation of deceit. It arises here instead of fear the boldness to describe the awful objects and the very possibility of giving testimony on their ugliness. This audacity of observation accounts for the inevitable presence of latent bitter laughter behind the depiction of the most lugubrious events that are rendered due to this depiction to the conscience of the succeeding generations. This bitter absent laughter attests the victory of those who have managed to notice evils and describe it thus attesting its ugliness and denying its right for existence. This bitter smile of sympathy for truth entails optimistic viewpoint of the terminal confirmation of truth.

As well as in tragedy it goes here about the copy not to be identified with the original. While dealing with the reproduced and imitated perturbations that have nothing to do with reality one indulges in amazing and amusing oneself without fear for the possible risk. One deals here with the situation when existential conditions can’t exert impact upon essence or as the Chinese could say, “the face would be saved”. It is such secured amazement and amusement that provoke humoristic laughter. Comical catharsis is just the disclosure of such existential security together with the consideration of the possible risk. It is the triumphant smile of those having conceived the identity and detected the latent meanings. The opposition of cognitive vs. existential (that converges with existence vs. essence) together with manifested vs. latent attributes of the represented things becomes the prerequisite for humoristic attitude. Apparently this moment coincides with that proper also for tragedy in the moment of recognition (the above discussed ) but its distinctive features are to be found in curiosity that follows even tragic catastrophe and comes to the disclosure of its roots. The tragedy remains tragedy, meanwhile at the same time it affords the bitter smile of triumph over the antagonists portrayed with all their ugly details. As far as a tragedy becomes disclosed and represented it presupposes also a kind of a breath of relief ensuing from the very fact of its elucidation. At the same time this fact of tragedy being explored and represented brings a contradictory moment: the particular tragic (often fatalistic) motivation of inevitability disappears here. Curiosity (not only attached to the scene of recognition) discloses the details of tragic events and foretells the victory over them with making them known. In its turn as far as comedy prefers surprises of the disparate spontaneous deeds¹²⁸⁷ (that concerns both pious amazement and vulgar astonishment) it is indispensable spontaneity accompanying the most tragic events that opens possibility for bitter smile. The consequence of such spontaneity is the known humor’s predilection for chaotic randomized scenes in the manner of conclave or imbroglio. That is why humor appears in the heart of tragedy as the confirmation of the observer’s successes imparting to the whole a particular sense of bitterness.

In this respect exaggerated criticism (as in the cases of malicious and compulsory laughter to be regarded further) turns out to become the inversion of sugary decorativeness that functions as a disguising deceit. That is why in particular the opportunities of satire are limited in the same way as those of irony are because the pure derision degrades to nihilism¹²⁸⁸. The property of laughter to become friendly & encouraging belongs just to the qualities of humor in opposite to satire. The aggression proper to satire presupposes antipathy that precludes its priority whereas the phenomenon of bitter humor associated with condemnation and hostility presupposes also the distanced contemplative representation of this antipathy before coming to the respective conclusions. Unilateral criticism of satire means prepared aggression whereas bitter humor acts as a kind of “rapping on the shoulder” and imparts “the feeling of fellowship, of a neighbor’s elbow” in enduring the current existential harms. In this way bitter humor imparts hope and foresees the condemnation of the represented malice without attacking it in the present moment. Humor is the manifestation of optimistic hope that comes together with love and belief. Therefore humor is free from aggression, malice and hatred¹²⁸⁹. That satire is incompatible with humor can be exemplified with F.M. Dostoyevsky’s works. In particular it is due to the lack of spontaneity and the imposed artificial compulsion of ritualistic nature that humor is destroyed¹²⁹⁰. The opposite picture of the implied bitter humor of condemnation is attested within the most tragic events of the Paris commune as in V. Hugo’s verse “Les Fusillés”.

Dans un noir peloton vingt jeunes filles passent; Elles chantent; leur grâce et leur calme innocent Inquiètent la foule effarée; un passsant Tremble. - Où donc allez-vous? Dit il à la plus belle. Parlez. - Je crois qu’on va nous fusiller, dit-elle.

* le cortège de mort passe * les victimes sont elu pour le monstre militaire * il excite l’embarras des observateurs *c’est égal quon fusille ou non parce que nous les dédaignons

In difference to sarcastic immediate condemnation one deals here just with the bitter humoristic optimistic smile of martyrdom. It is the contemplative distanced picture of execution that is given here, and the very fact of such testimony to male brutes of the platoon marks the cognitive victory over the depicted rogues. Paradoxically the deepest sorrow and hopelessness conceals in poetry a deeply concealed bitter smile. It is the humor of the victory over the observed and disclosed butchers that can’t be tolerated as the human beings. Besides the humoristic bitterness is attested with the victim’s answer where the disdain to these butchers is clearly attested. Such humoristic bitterness betrays the existence of a single observer capable of not accepting and approving this harm of the societal “order”. The very testimony becomes the condemnation and brings a bit of optimism. Thus the paradoxical humor of melancholy arises. The situation of martyrdom itself entails optimistic element due to the fact of being attested and therefore brings forth the phenomenon of heroic humor. It is the humor of those condemned to perish as the soldiers of Thermopiles. Dante’s most lugubrious pictures presuppose humor of the existence of their observer. The Japanese writer Akutagawa’s novel “Hellish Tortures” where the painter is compelled to see her daughter burn at the bonfire entails a very bitter grin of the conscience of attested and disclosed crime. Humor presupposes contempt to those caught as the objects of a poet’s shrewd observation. The humor consists in the fact that the malice can’t manage to escape the disclosure of its foulness. Therefore humor does by no means presuppose any kind of reconciliation or toleration of the depicted phenomena no to say of approval; it is the tolerability of attentive observer aiming at the disclosure of the explored foe that humoristic tolerability means. Humor tolerates the necessity of contemplation and not the existence of the object of contemplation. It means lyrical contemplative distance and impossibility of intrusion in difference to other forms of the comical. Therefore the very testimony given to malice in its representation is not identical with the pure recognition of some mythological prototype, say, of Antigona in the cited examples. Such identification would mean reduction to the eternal and the resignation from condemnation of the recurrent phenomena¹²⁹¹. Rather it goes about the identification of type & ideal standing behind the represented persons and the respective historical fates: Such is the meaning of the humor of melancholy that displays its identification of the optimism.

Humor as the smile with sympathy of optimism takes the initial position in the development of the forms of comedy. The absence of malice is not only the property of humor in opposite to satire: it reveals the fundamental property of sound laughter to deride both the external object as the laughing subject¹²⁹². This property can be defined as the bilateral essence of humor where both the object and the subject are derided¹²⁹³. One can say of the reflexive nature of smile that always returns to the laughing person as its immanent object. Vice versa malicious laughter is always unilateral and therefore loses this reflexive property getting the property of irreversibility instead. Humor with its skeptic attitude is then replaced with the presupposed pride and self-certitude of malicious laughter. Therefore self-criticism is the basis of humor. That is why humor promotes removing the arrogant pride of self-assurance (as in irony) together with the despair of despondency. Humor becomes necessary for the authentic evaluation of situation and adequate decision as the element of optimism. Satire is connected with anger, irony with contempt, grotesque with fear. Meanwhile humor tolerates sorrow but doesn’t entail it as an indispensable consequence. Within the most detestable conditions it appears at the background as the sign of the events being disrobed and put to condemnation. The priority of humor ensues also from the absence of some original source that would serve as the primary phenomenon. Humor doesn’t interpret some preexistent source and represents itself as its proper source. It is already the mentioned phenomenon of heroic humor attesting optimistic hope and belief in the meaningfulness of the exploits that gives grounds for the autonomy of humor present in the most incredible situations.

It seems too obvious that comedy has developed first and foremost in theatrical form, and that its presence within the epic narrative seems to become much more seldom. Meanwhile although the seriousness is associated with epic distance it is here that at the same time irony is evoked as the result of estranged evaluation of the narrated events. One has to discriminate seriousness from tragedy as well as humoristic attitude from laughter as the device of derision. These gradations and demarcations enable disclosing the essential ties between comic meanings and textual means for their representation. Therefore neither rite nor its parody (as the inversion) can be regarded as the primary forms of comedy. For instance the type of the comedy of intrigue where in the initial position one finds the lovers and their wedding “crowns the end” can be supposed to come back to the fertility ritual. Meanwhile it would be erroneous to try to reduce such comedy to rite. In particular it would be gross error to identify laughter with sexual irritation: such conjecture would refuse the ability to laugh to all who doesn’t belong to sensible and lightly irritable persons. Therefore one has to involve the proper comic capacities of cognitive semiotic nature that would procure such effects without the blend with existential circumstances and attachment to respective rites.