Національна Академія Мистецтв України Інститут культурології
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- There are no tragic counterparts to brief jokes
- Elegy
- Optimism
| paralysis of will and the ensuing terror1306 whereas humor is protected against it. This issue accounts for the specific conditions of intensified risk when the phenomenon arose (as in mediaeval society).
Laughter is more easily to produce and simulate than tears in particular, it can be produced arbitrarily whereas tears that are usually aroused with outer force and can remain inimitable1307. Moreover, there exists the special kind of polite laughter that accompanies the jokes uttered by the persons of a higher social rank. Of course, such laughter is a forgery and simulation as well as tears can be. The difference is that it becomes much easier to simulate laughter and therefore the opposite form of behavior turns out to be suppressed1308. At the same time the ritual weeping and plaint is of ancient origin are much better known and described by J.J. Frazer as those with relics in the Old Testament1309. Such ritual plaints developed in the whole textual corpus of the poetry of cemetery have been derided by M. Twain in “Huckleberry Finn” (where the sorrow for sorrow’s sake was exposed in a girl’s manuscripts). Both weep and laughter then display connections to arbitrary, compulsory and voluntary regulation. Therefore one can trace even the implementation of obligatory laughter as a kind of official duties as it took place in Russia under the rule of Peter `the First1310. Subsequently the so called ritual laughter becomes only one of the derivative forms of such regulated service as the simulation of laughter in the same way as the simulation of weep is in the mentioned habits. Meanwhile the very necessity to suppress either laughter (as in the so called agelastics where the necessity to refrain from smile has been proclaimed) or seriousness (as in the so called ritual laughter) represent the effects of taboo with its inhibition and prohibition. All it remains within the limits of mythology and magic way of thought. Besides, the very fact of simulation always brings deceit and hypocrisy. The mask of insincerity and forgery comes into play where the copy of laughter is by no means funny as the original could be (as well as the copy of tears can become that of a “weeping Crocodile”). Then the grinning faces are to be regarded as masks concealing the genuine intentions. Such effect of mimicry destroys playfulness as the principal property of genuine laughter due to the ubiquitous presence of deceit. In particular, parody and lampoon as a special kind of simulation discloses itself as the preponderant distortion or hyperbole and the purposeful deceit (that loses its deceiving properties). Laughter arises as the result of the disclosure of the incoherence of copy and original and of the ensuing deceit if the simulation has been carried out awkwardly with the respective purpose. Mimicry becomes then identified with absurdity. To sum up one can confirm the priority of humor in opposite to grotesque and ritual laughter as its derivation. Humor comprises joy & dole, elevation & depreciation as the antithetic sides of indivisible phenomena. So grotesque does too (where weep and laughter become indiscernible as in the case of hysteria), but humor is free both from ritualistic compulsion and pathological perversion. That is why humor takes the initial and grotesque the derivative position within the development of comedy. The grotesque of ritual laughter betrays apparent unilateral property: be laughter regulated voluntarily and arbitrarily, so the restraint from laughter (as in the mentioned agelastics) would become also the indispensable constraint. The derision becoming void of spontaneity, it will be transformed into serious action destroying comedy. Vice versa humor is marked with tolerance towards the coexistence of contradicting sides. Due to this tolerance humor displays but only spontaneity but also liberty. It would be out of question to smile without the existent freedom. Then smile designates liberty as the independence from existential conditions and the retention of essence in spite of such conditions. It is liberty that imparts playfulness as the discovery of possible worlds. This approach can be exemplified with the famous passage from “The Usual Wonder” by E. Schwarz where the necessity to deal with the unforeseen spontaneous possibilities is stressed: < Хозяин: Как ты смел не поцеловать ее? Медведь: Но ведь вы знаете, чем это кончилось бы! Х.: Нет, не знаю! Ты не любил девушку! М.: Неправда! Х.: Не любил, иначе волшебная сила безрассудства охватила бы тебя. […] А ты что сделал из любви к девушке? М. Я отказался от нее. Х.: Великолепный поступок. А ты знаешь, что всего раз в жизни выпадает влюбленным день, когда все им удается. (2)>. The Bear’s arguments resemble those of Cassandra as to the foreseen fatal result and the futility of struggle. Such sophistic statements are easily to refute while taking onto consideration the impact of the foreseer’s information upon the future events (as the particular case of the observer’s paradox where his or her very existence exerts influence upon the situation in the world). A certain parallel to this episode can be found in B. Shaw’s “Man and Superman” (3) where Don Juan (as the provisionary incarnation of Tanner the bridegroom of Ann) makes a parody of a sermon with the aim of praising hell as a refuge from reality.
Not to deal with the sophisms of the both quotations let it be stressed that the problem of what has the grounds to be taken for reality is here connected to the spontaneity or its absence. It would become the revelation of pride and self-conceit to regard the future as something predictable and motivated and this refutability of the cited sophisms approves the presence of humor as the vehicle of spontaneity. These spontaneous unpredictable effects impart to laughter such essential temporal peculiarity as its brevity in comparison to tears1311. Melancholy is always much longer whereas smile sparkles for a short moment; one can say of short jokes whereas to render tragic contents one needs much larger scope, and it entails also the known rebukes as to the superficiality of comedy1312. There are no tragic counterparts to brief jokes. What can be taken for it looks actually as the so called black humor that demonstrates the consequence of the spontaneity & immediacy of comic effects1313. It was in particular the reason for the places of comedies as the intermezzos inserted within a tragedy. This connection of comedy with immediate reaction (in opposite to the necessity of preparatory evaluation in tragedy) entails decisive distinctions in phraseology. Witty enunciations have obvious preferences in textual compression (anecdotes being the pattern). At the same time the compressed text can’t make a comedy in the whole. One can richly decorate a speech with witty remarks; meanwhile the whole will be tragedy: such is the case in tragicomedy1314. A series of jokes turns at the end into a tragedy (as is the case in B. Shaw’s plays). Meanwhile this comic succinctness is not to be overestimated. One can find the examples of proverbial enunciations with bitter irony and tragic implications1315. Meanwhile they presuppose the involvement of intertextual data for tragic conclusions. It goes therefore about implicit and explicit representations of comic and tragic contents with the preferences for comic explicit brevity. As to the larger scope here the situation is obvious: an elongated joke loses its comic effect so that, as a rule, prolixity ruins comedy. Meanwhile such opposition must not be overestimated: within the field of comedy it is also to observe the temporal contrast between short and quick outbursts of laughter and much more durable smile of amazement. The property of prolongation is that of amazement whereas in laughter it can be detected only within the cases of pathology as the intoxication of laughing gas. In particular the mentioned orgiastic laughter of rites can be only provisionary & local device. As a rule this brevity entails a very essential distinction of comedy from tragedy that consists in a particular comical actualism that’s the refusal from temporal perspective of the future: when tragedy expects the catastrophe to come there’s no expectations of the kind in comedy that is perceived as a prolonged current moment of the present time1316. This “moveable feast” of comedy associated with the brevity of laughter entails the compressing properties of humoristic locutions. In particular the humor of such locutions is often implicit and demands special efforts to be excavated and comprehended. Therefore the problem of silent risibility that’s of the latent forms of humor (that can’t be noticed with the first glimpse neither detected immediately) arises already in the proverbial utterances. These compressing and concealing properties of humor contribute to its priority as the vehicle of brevity within dramatic tissue. That is why humor is justly identified with the single given elusive moment of the actual present time1317. It would be here erroneous to identify such humoristic attitude with the amusement and entertainment: vice versa this concentration upon the actual moment demands special spiritual efforts1318. Such concentration presupposes the negative acts off rejecting expectations and recollections so that the motivational links of the current event disappear. Such temporal property of humor accounts also for the role of chaotic scenes (the so called conclaves, imbroglio, qui pro quo) as the device for comical effects. One of the consequences of so called agelastic (prohibiting and excluding laughter) approach is the lack of diversity in conversational scenes. Then tedium is usually associated with the monotony; in its turn the capriciousness as the attempt of finding variegation in details gives only the inversion of monotony. Randomness and tedium converge together so that the comic effects don’t arise from diversity as such. The role of comical “divertimenti” and “intermezzos” as the amusing scenes doesn’t mean the identification of textual heterogeneity with humor. Monotonous variegation of some “conclaves” can demonstrate it. The apparition of spontaneity remains here only an apparition because actually all tours of such artificial diversification can be foreseen. Vice versa the genuine spontaneity of humor gives grounds for comparing it to love1319. It is noteworthy that love and compassion (filled with pity) are often synonyms where the avoidance of preponderant derision is praised very high1320. Humor is therefore not identical with laughter for laughter’s sake. Rather it approaches condolence and sorrow as the optimistic side disclosed behinds the gloomy circumstances and sentiments. It is optimism and not pure derision that determines humoristic verve. The fundamental place of humor within the forms of laughter’s culture is tied with its contemplative tolerance of attentive observer displaying sensitivity towards the diversity of world and therefore with its cognitive priority. Humoristic properties are inherent already to idiomatic opportunities of language and attested with proverbial locutions as wit’s samples. Therefore humor is tied not only with the existential factor of joy, but first of all with the cognitive force of curiosity (in opposite to grotesque or farce where such cognitive aspects of comedy aren’t significant). It is already anecdotes as the extended proverbs where such connection between curiosity and comic effects become visible. It is curiosity as the source of cognitive activity that the humor arouses. It is here to stress that curiosity can by no means be conceived as a “cognitive aggression” as it doesn’t presuppose experimental distortion of an object and is restricted with contemplative attitude. Amazement and admiration are associated with recognition and illumination (insight) that belong to tragedy as well. Paradoxically it concerns also the details of a tragic hero’s martyrdom to be described and attested where humoristic bitterness is revealed. The sound curiosity is developed from the reflex of orientation (I.P. Pavlov’s “what is it” reflex). This contemplative nature of humor can be attested with the known motif of Turandot where the smile arises just as the cognitive and not as the existential sign. It is just the case of the above suggested heuristic laughter that presupposes pathetic, heroic and tragic elements. It is to bear in mind that not only the events represented in text as the existential data are given but also the very representation of them as the cognitive achievement takes place. The most detestable events are mirrored and mapped; therefore their existence becomes attested, and this testimony itself brings optimism. In this map the events are identified with types & ideals and thus with the historical fate that becomes their verdict. Humor arises due to this hope of the malice being disrobed and condemned in the historical perspective. Elegy represents sorrow; meanwhile the very existence of this representation gives account of it and thus removes the pure melancholy adding optimistic humoristic verve. It is the textual self-reference of reflection that entails optimism and brings forth the latently existent concomitant humor. In this way heuristic laughter turns into heroic one. Risibility & pudency arise together as the development of curiosity in opposite to terror & tedium and as the signs of the victory over them. Here the principal distinction between humor and grotesque is to be taken into account. Humor presupposes tolerance and indulgence as the humanistic attitudes indispensable for explorative cognitive activity. Grotesque doesn’t necessarily arouse curiosity (in particular due to the ugly forms provoking repellence). A somber and gloomy grotesque is to be found in the discussed case of N.V. Gogol’s “The Betrothal” where the initial comic events turn into macabre images. The M.M. Bakhtin’s concepts of grotesque and “grotesque realism” can generalize also “ritual laughter”. In opposite to it normal laughter presupposes shame as its counterpart but there are no hints to shame in farcical obscenities where the very sentiment of shame gets degraded. It alone gives grounds to regard overgrown and exaggerated grotesque as an anomalous phenomenon (in particular as that to be encountered in hysteria or hebephrenic diseases) whereas humor deals with the world’s imperfection without preponderant derision. It does by no means entail the toleration of malice and reconciliation with it as it would seem to ensue from the approach to humor as the effect of testimony given to the represented malice. As it has been shown, the distanced contemplative description of the malice implies already its condemnation and the recognition of the detected malice doesn’t mean its approval. Therefore it is grace that has to be taken for the genuine source for humor with its heroic heuristic forms. The category of gracious enables joining together comedy and lyrics that can be found in lyrical comedy. At the same time it arouses the question of the compatibility of contradictory elements, namely those of the spontaneity of laughter with the peculiar lyrical conventionality as well as lyrical predilection of solitude and melancholy with the humoristic necessity of communion. No game can be conducted in solitude, therefore it presupposes indispensably communication entailing the paradox of humor observed and revealed just in the seclusion of an observer. Lyrical comic phenomena are to be found first of all within the epigrammatic works. Actually those elements of drama that are free from the obligatory attachment to the distinctions of tragedy and comedy and are regarded usually as epic insertions belong to the domain of lyrics. It goes about the inner world of characters that gains priority here. These lyrical features of humor can be traced in the cited samples where it is already the particular comical brevity that precludes the developed communication. Humor is capable to engender a sound kind of “contagious laughter” that is quite different from the discussed fascination of ritual laughter. Therefore in particular the conclusion on suicide as the ultimate consequence of laughter (proclaimed by the ancient cynics as by Lukian) displays sophism because it would presuppose the reduction of laughter to ritual obligation void of spontaneity. Meanwhile already the Christian celebrations of Christmas and Easter involve heroic and pathetic laughter of the right affair’s victory. It is overtly opposed to carnival and parody as the secondary derivative laughter (mystery occupying the primary place). The particular place of comedy in the development of dramatic art is attested with its leading role in overcoming its dualistic relation towards tragedy and creating realistic drama. This process is especially clearly attested in the history of opera where operas - buffa had taken the initiative in comparison to operas - seria. If tragedy has funeral rite as its origin with the consequence of the inevitable flow of events and fatalism, comedy always presupposes the playful procedure of a game with its unforeseen issues of spontaneity. Tragic events (as the irretrievably motivated chain of causation) are opposed to the risk and hazard involved in comical deeds (hopeless as they can be in the case of heroic bitter humor). The priority of humor is attested in the development of dramatic genera in particular with the baroque interludes where the images of vanity were displayed. As the antipode to tedium humor provides opportunities of grasping chaos as the category of vanity. This experience has been inherited in vaudevilles. It is comedy where the way towards realistic drama has been paved. Thus the grotesque images in drama were introduced. The development of comic forms in this direction has come to the rise of tragicomedies where the cumulative compilation of jokes resulted in tragic solution. The existence of gracious sources of humoristic imagery enables looking for correlative phenomena in the human inner world’s development. One can find the common denominator of comedy and tale in the infantile imagery and in particular in puppetry. Optimism is the inseparable feature of childish life endowed with vitality. That is why humor can be regarded as one of the fundamentals of infantile mentality. Wondrous and miraculous elements in comedy as the result of spontaneity are the unforeseen phenomena of deus ex machina (salvation or happy end) that apparently come back to infantile mentality. It conforms to the spontaneity of behavior proper for child. Humorous priority is attested with the attachment to happy end (or the fabulous “miraculous assistant”). Such features of the infantile world can be concentrated around the two fields: those of the imagery of fairy tale and of comedy as the proper inclination of childish age. There are numerous evidences in favor of the priority of smile in infancy. In particular they concern the smiling blind born babies (that excludes any conjecture of imitating smile from the adult patterns)1321. This autonomy of laughter is confirmed with its attachment to the health of a baby1322. Still more clearly the priority of laughter is observable in comparison with weep: in difference to the adults where the convergence of the both takes place baby retains the outspoken opposition1323. And of special significance is the constant attachment of laughter to sympathy in particular due to the derivation of smile from the copy of maternal mammillae1324. In its turn tale as the terrain of playful inventiveness and imagination becomes the indispensable instructive area as far as it is with play that a child acquires the necessary behavioral patterns. The importance of fairy tale for childhood is evident already from the initiation that builds up its structural model. The age of childhood being the preparation for the passage to the state of adult, this model as the behavioral pattern becomes especially influential. Infantile negativism intersects with the rites of passage and ensuing prohibitions. A very significant side of fairy tale is that of puppetry that becomes its common denominator with infantile mentality. While dealing with the childish imaginary world it is worth putting an accent upon the inability to deceive without getting red that betrays infantile adherence to what is sincerely taken for truth in the case of “sincere delusion” (even the impossible invented stories as those of “a cup that falls down” with sovereign decision). This inability becomes peculiar for infant and attests the full absence of any vestige of mimicry in its behavior1325. Therefore deceit and the absence of spontaneous sincerity are beyond the possibilities of an infant’s behavior. This inability of a child to be insincere means also that irony is out of the reach of infantile mentality, not to say of the above discussed ritual laughter. They are replaced with humor. It is due to spontaneity that comical deeds display their similarity to the infantile forms of conduct1326. Humor retains infantine ability to perceive world as it is without previous preponderant general ideas. The reference of humor to childhood is attested with childish folklore. One could only remind such sample: «Зайчику, де ти був? – У лісі. – Що бачив? – Горіхи. – Чом не взяв? – Сміх не дав» [(Довженок et al.), 1984, 340]. In particular humor reveals itself in nonsense poetry. One could here remind the genre of limerick where idiomatic locutions serve as verbal masks. With such disguise the disclosed contradiction exerts specific comical effect. Vivid and visible picture becomes here the disguise for something that can’t be liable for reasoning. Imaginative transparence invites for mental transcendence in the fabulous world of seeming absurdity. It is the images of singularity capable of attracting attention that become the canonis device as in E. Lear’s limerick: “There was an Old Man of Aosta / Who possessed a large cow but he lost her”. This is still to be continued in the phenomena of abracadabra peculiar for Dadaism and originated from the childish poetry. They are already to be detected in such typical species of incipit with reduplications where the meaningful names are reduced to exclamations and treated as interjections as «куй, куй, коваль». In such cases the above discussed charades come as the problems to be conceived and regarded as the puzzles for childish play. This poetry of nonsense is founded upon the identification of play and reality, and the same concerns animal tale. In this respect bestiary represents the oldest form of comical imagery connected with fables so that one sees justly here the source of comedy as a kind of fable’s inversion1327. It is of importance that childish humor acquires its forms together with the formation of the notions of personal mortality perceived with humorous attitude as the object of play. Thus the usual simile of a poet and a child comes to the essential mutuality of the both circles of experience. The parallels between poetical and infantile mentality can be substantiated with the thorough statement about the experimental background of poetry. It is not to follow the Dadaistic tradition only to get persuasive evidences as to the existence of infantile and poetical mutuality. The roots lie much deeper. One can cite as an example P. Valery who discerns five phases of creative process: “Ecrire ou faire quoi que ce soit a partir de zero – 1. Desordre initiale. Eblouissements – vertiges ou vide, rien; 2. Tatons, Ebauche d’un chemin – dans la masse mentale – 3. Acts nets – (Region des) – 4. Jugements – reculs – 5. Enrichissements (Phase de) simplification” [Schmidt-Radefeldt, 36]. These phases can correlate with those of an infant coping with its first attempts of speech. The text is created “a la queu leu leu” so that there appear initial illuminations with disparate names and thereafter first propositional forms. Poetry permanently returns to infantile imagination that is in particular to be elevated in creating lyrical seclusion. One can say of жүктеу/скачать 6.92 Mb. Достарыңызбен бөлісу:
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