Quintilian on Humor (II)

According to Quintilian, humor can be applied to oratory in three manners:
1. retorting or deriding other people’s arguments;
2. saying things “which have a suggestion of absurdity” (Institutio Oratoria 23) or speaking ironically;
3. cheating the hearers’ expectations, making them take words “in a different sense from what was intended” (24).

Quintilian iterates the significance of urbanitas; to him, urbanity is an indispensible quality in a successful orator. He sometimes quotes Domitius Marsus (De Urbanitate) to further strengthen his point.

There are two noteworthy aspects of Quintilian’s discussion of humor:*

1.      Humor is to him more of a rhetorical weapon for defense or attack than of a talent to delight.

2.      Quintilian humor is heavily class-conscious in that it encourages demonstration of decency, education, and social status, and in that it emphasizes the distinction between the urbane wit of the orator and the vulgar gags of the buffoon.

*Figueroa-Dorrego & Larkin-Galiñanes have these two points explicitly made near the end of the section on Quintilian:

“...Quintilian has insisted on the notion of urbanitas and on the necessary difference between the educated orator and the uncultivated lower classes also in the use of humour. […] the orator’s wit is expected to be elegant, sensible, and tactful, as opposed to the obscene, boorish tomfoolery, and “those coarse jives so common on the lips of the rabble” than turn into abuse (47). Like previous authors, Quintilian admonishes that “scurrilous or brutal jest, although they may raise a laugh, are quite unworthy of a gentleman,” because they can make the audience angry (83). And also like his predecessors, Quintilian was not interested in studying humour per se, but rather subordinated to rhetorical effectiveness and his own class-conscious conceopt of urbanistas” (45).

Quintilian on Humor (I)

Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria (ca. 93 A.D.) is believed the second systematic work (following Cicero’s De Oratore, of course) which deals with humor. Chapter 1 in Book VI is dedicated to its related reasoning and analysis.

He speaks of the function of humor in court:

“[The talent of laughter-raising] dispels the graver emotions of the judge by exciting his laughter, frequently diverts his attention from the facts of the case, and sometimes even refreshes him and revives him when he has begun to be bored or wearied by the case”

--Insitutio Oratoria, VI, iii, 1

In his understanding, humor is an emotion, and yet the cause of humor (or, funny effect) is uncertain. There, however, are several possible sources, “such as words or actions that are witty, or which reveal folly, anger, or fear” (Figueroa-Dorrego & Larkin-Galiñanes 40-41).

Quintilian asserts that humor “depends mainly on nature and opportunity” (Institutio Oratoria, VI, iii, 11). By “nature,” he refers to a born sense of humor; by “opportunity,” an amusing situation. Some people are born with a quicker mind or keener sense to raise laughter. Some situations are more inclined to offer chances of repartees. In everyday life, as noticed, a combination of the two usually promises a convivial gathering or social success.

In his discussion that humor is to be conformed to gravitas (following Cicero’s footsteps), Quintilian defines six terms related to wit:

1.      Urbanitas: “language with a smack of the city in its words, accent and idioms, and further suggests a certain tincture of learning derived from associating with well-educated men; in a word, it represents the opposite of rusticity” (17).

2.      Venustus: “that which is said with grace and charm” (18).

3.      Salsus: “wit about which there is nothing insipid, wit, that is to say, which serves as a simple seasoning of language, […], with the result that it stimulates our taste and saves a speech from becoming tedious” (19; he warns that salty wit like salty food should not be served too much.).

4.      Facetus: “a certain grace and polished elegance” (20).

5.      Iocus: “usually taken to mean the opposite of seriousness. This view is, however, somewhat too narrow. For to feign, to terrify, or to promise, are all at times forms of jesting” (21).

6.      Dicacitas: “especially applied to the language of banter, which is a humorous form of attack” (21).

Vulgarity Appeals

(The comic graphic is taken intact from :
http://www.explosm.net/comics/1769/
and shall be removed from this blog post upon request.)

In humor theory, scholars gravitate to the intriguing phenomenon that vulgarity, as a laughter-raising device, appeals to some of us but repels the rest of us. Why these two extremes? There are arguably some explanations.

Here's an example of vulgar verbal humor in Chinese. Posting jokes (no matter what kind) is never my intention nor the purpose of this blog. However, it wouldn't hurt to have a little fun out of my research, a funny business, here and there.

時間，就像乳溝一樣，擠一擠就有了！
機會，就像老二一樣，緊握就會變大！
生活就像是被強姦，反抗不了就學著享受！
學習就像嫖妓，出錢又出力！
工作就像輪姦，如果你不行，就換另一個人來做！
社會就像手淫，全部的事情都要靠自己的雙手去解決！
發薪水就像是月經，一個月不來那麼一次總覺得不能安心！
兄弟就像保險套，插多大的洞都幫你罩著！
承諾，就像一句幹你娘，人人都會說，卻沒人做得到！

NOTE:

1. The joke has been spread around for some time and can no longer be traced  to its original author and website.
2. The vulgar nature and the word play of this joke deny my academic conscience and decent personality any attempt to translate it into English. Those who don't read Chinese are blessed for not having your morals contaminated.

Laughter & Neuroscience (Neuroimaging of the Optimistic Brains)

This is a video clip posted on YOUTUBE. It is made known to and shared with me by my friend Shun-liang. Under the viewing box I include what is posted with it on YOUTUBE. For a better version with higher pixels and an English subtitle, please go to the origianl post (the link is given below).

wellcometrust | November 17, 2009

Is your glass half full? Chances are that it is, along with those of 80 per cent of the general population - we're an overwhelmingly positive species.

At the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, Dr Tali Sharot is one of the leading scientists teasing apart the neurological correlates of what we call optimism. In this film, find out how a happier disposition not only helps us get through the day, but may even be key to our evolutionary success.

Category:

Science & Technology

the original post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ebb_2StFk3E

A Memo: plays to go through for the comedy course

These are 13 plays chosen by Professor Vivienne Westbrook for in-class discussion. Some of them are chosen as expected, while some, to my amazement, always seem to slip by me without a slight suggestion of humor. I'm really curious about her take and looking forward to her lectures on these plays that are seemingly tragic (I believe there's more to say than a mere focus on the comic relief).

1. The Taming of the Shrew
2. The Comedy of Errors
3. The Merry Wives of Windsor
4. Much Ado About Nothing
5. Twelfth Night
6. Measure for Measure
7. Richard III
8. Henry IV, Part 1
9. Henry IV, Part 2
10. Hamlet
11. Othello
12. King Lear
13. The Winter’s Tale

Cicero on Humor (IV): De Officiis (On Duties)

Caesar insists that laughter is –and should only be—provoked by the presentation of deformity, either physical or ethical flaws, as long as those defects have nothing to do with outstanding wickedness or wretchedness, because in those cases we would—or should—rather be moved to repulsion or compassion. Excluding bad taste is the basic rule for an orator who wants to use humour, because he must avoid the danger of behaving as a scurra (buffoon) or a mimum (mime, mummer).

—Figueroa-Dorrego & Larkin-Galiñanes 37



[W]hat excites laughter is disappointing expectations and ridiculing other people’s characters and imitating a baser person and dissembling and saying things that are rather silly and criticizing points that are foolish.

--De Oratore, lxxi, 289.

“Nature has not brought us into the world to act as if we were created for play or jest, but rather for earnestness and for some more serious and important pursuits.”

“We may, of course, indulge in sport and jest, but in the same way as we enjoy sleep or other relaxations, and only when we have satisfied the claims of our earnest, serious tasks.”

“[Jesting] ought not to be extravagant or immoderate, but refined and witty.” (The way humor is exercised shows the personality, education, and social class of the person who exercises it.)

(Two types of jests:) “the one, coarse, rude, vicious, indecent; the other, refined, polite, clever, witty.”

“[T]he distinction between the elegant and the vulgar jest is an easy matter: the one kind, if well timed (for instance, in hours of mental relaxation), is becoming to the most dignified person; the other is unfit for any gentleman, if the subject is indecent and the words obscene.”

--De Officiis Book I

Some words Cicero used in related discussion: urbanus (polite), elegans (elegant), illiberale (coarse).



Cicero on Humor (III)

Through the character Caius Julius Caesar and through this character's conversation with another character, Antonius, Cicero speaks in De Oratore of five aspects of laughter (humor)--the nature of laughter, the source of laughter, the appropriateness of laughter in oratory, the limits of laughter, and the classification of laughable things:

*As recorded in De Oratore lviii, 236: “…merriment naturally wins goodwill for its author; and everyone admires acuteness, which is often concentrated in a single word, uttered generally in repelling, though sometimes in delivering an attack; and it shatters or obstructs or makes light of an opponent, or alarms or repulses him; and it show the orator himself to be a man of finish, accomplishment and taste; and, best of all, it relieves dullness and tones down austerity, and, by a jest or a laugh, often dispels distasteful suggestions not easily weakened by reasonings.”

*The orator restricts the use of humor according to the subject matter, the context, and the hearers. As regards topics, the following is to be ruled out: “…neither outstanding wickedness, such as involves crime, nor, on the other hand, outstanding wretchedness is assailed by ridicule, for the public would have the villainous hurt by a weapon rather more formidable than ridicule; while they dislike mockery of the wretched, except perhaps if these bear themselves arrogantly. And you must be especially tender of popular esteem, so that you do not inconsiderately speak ill of the well-beloved (De Oratore lviii, 237).

        Such then is the restraint that, above all else, must be practised in jesting. Thus the things most easily ridiculed are those which call for neither strong disgust nor the deepest sympathy. This is why all laughing-matters are found among those blemishes noticeable in the conduct of people who are neither objects of general esteem nor yet full of misery, and not apparently merely fit to be hurried off to execution for their crimes; and these blemishes, if deftly handled, raise laughter. In ugliness too and in physical blemishes there is good enough matter for jesting, but here as elsewhere the limits of licence are the main question (lix, 238-9).

*If the mimicry is overly done, “it becomes the work of buffoons in pantomime, as also does grossness. It behoves the orator to borrow merely a suspicion of mimicry, so that his hearer may imagine more than meets his eye; he must also testify to his own well-bred modesty, by avoiding all unseemly language and offensive gestures.

        […] both in narrative and in mimicry, all likeness to buffoons in pantomime is to be avoided, so in this latter case the orator must scrupulously shun all buffoonish raillery (lxix, 242-lx, 243).

A Course that Answers My Pursuits.

I'm currently taking a course entitled "Shakespeare and Humor." It is very pleasing to find out that the course focuses on humor theories. When Professor Westbrook managed to give a quick run-down on the history of humor theories, I was really impressed that she came so prepared for the first meeting, and was really surprised that we were offered this treat (I see it as a treat, and I'd kill for the transparencies she showed us in class.). Here are the recommended reference books for the class:

(picture taken from: http://hudsonshakespeare.org/Shakespeare%20Library/Ful%20Play%20Text/text%20-%20comedies/comedies.htm)

 ※ The following list is taken intack (except that I do the numbering so I can see how many of them are there) from the syllabus for this course. The choice and layout are made by and belong to Professor Vivienne Westbrook. This list will be immediately removed from my blog post on her request.

1. Barton, Anne. “The King Disguised.” William Shakespeare’s Histories and Poems. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1986.
2. Billig, Michael. Laughter and Ridicule: Towards a Social Critique of Humour : London: SAGE, 2005.
3. Brigden, Susan. New Worlds, Lost Worlds: the Rule of the Tudors 1485-1603. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 2000.
4. Briggs, Julia. This Stage-Play World: Texts and Contexts, 1580-1625. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
5. Callaghan, Dympna. Shakespeare Without Women. London and New York: Routledge, 2000.
6. Dollimore, Jonathan, and Alan Sinfield. Political Shakespeare: Essays in Cultural Materialism. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996.
7. Dubrov, Heather and Richard Strier. Eds. The Historical Renaissance : New Essays in Tudor and Stuart Literature and Culture. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1988.
8. Foakes, R.A. Shakespeare & Violence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
9. Gay, Penny. Introduction to Shakespeare’s Comedies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
10. Goldberg, Jonathan. James I and the Politics of Literature. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1989.
11. Gruner, Charles R. Understanding Laughter: The Workings of Wit and Humour. Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1978.
12. Gurr, Andrew. The Shakespearean Stage: 1574-1642. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992; 2009.
13. Halliwell, Stephen. Greek Laughter: a Study of Cultural Psychology from Homer to Early Christianity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
14. Hattaway, Michael. Ed. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s History Plays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
15. Holland, Peter. English Shakespeares. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1997; 2000.
16. Howard, Jean. and Phyllis Rackin. Engendering a Nation: a Feminist Account of Shakespeare’s English Histories. London: Routledge, 1997.
17. Joughin, J.John. Philosophical Shakespeare. London and New York: Routledge, 2000.
18. Kastan, David. Scott. Shakespeare and the Shapes of Time. London: Macmillan, 1982.
19. Kuller Shuger, Debora. Political Theologies in Shakespeare’s England. London: Palgrave, 2001.
20. McDonald, Russ. Shakespeare and the Arts of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
21. Marx, Stephen. Shakespeare and the Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
22. Maslin, Robert W. Shakespeare and Comedy. London: Arden Shakespeare, 2005.
23. Miola, S. Robert. Shakespeare’s Reading. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
24. Orgel, Stephen. The Illusion of Power: Political Theater in the English Renaissance. London: University of California Press, 1975.
25. Richman, David. Laughter, Pain and Wonder: Shakespeare’s Comedies and the Audience in the Theatre. London: University of Delaware Press, 1990.
26. Teague, Frances. Acting Funny: Comic Theory and Practice in Shakespeare’s Plays. London: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1994.

※ taken from Dr. Vivienne Westbrook's syllabus for the course "Shakespeare and Humor."

Cicero on Humor (II)

Two Kinds of Facetiousness: Irony (cavillatio) & Raillery (dicacitas)

  

                     --Figueroa-Dorrego & & Larkin-Galiñanes 35

Cicero on Humor (I)

Cicero adapted the tradition started by Aristotle and Theophrastus to the Roman context, and produced the first extant systematic analysis of humour. This section of De Oratore (On the Orator, II, liv-lxxi) provides us with valuable information about the rich Latin vocabulary that referred to different aspects of humour, and also about the manner in which all these aspects were expected to fit into public oratory.* The topic is brought out by Antonius, who claims that jesting (iocus) and shafts of wit (facetiae) “are agreeable and often highly effective” but, as they are “the endowment of nature,” they cannot be taught (liv, 216).His partner Caius Julius Caesar Strabo agrees with him about both the utility of witticisms in oratory and the impossibility of learning this art.

—Figueroa-Dorrego & Larkin-Galiñanes 34

Although the two characters Antonius and Caesar speak for Cicero that humor cannot be instilled or imparted, Cicero speaks through Antonius that the appropriate use of humor can be instructed and inculpable. “[R]egard ought to be paid to personages, topics, and occasions, so that the jest should not detract from dignity” (lvi, 229). One should certainly stand off the limits of gravitas (dignity, decorum).

*Here the authors are quoting Jan Bremmer & Herman Roodenburg (“Introduction: Humour and History.” A Cultural History of Humour: From Antiquity to the Present Day. Eds. J. Bremmer and H. Roodenburg. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997. 1-10.) to justify their observation that Cicero follows the footsteps of Aristotle and Theophrastus, and are quoting Fritz Graf (“Cicero, Plautus, and Roman Laughter.” A Cultural History of Humour: From Antiquity to the Present Day. Eds. J. Bremmer and H. Roodenburg. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997. 29-39.) to explain that humour concerns public oratory.

Humor in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons (continued)

In “Xieyin(諧讔)” (Chapter 15), the paragraph on humor opens with a definition:

“Humor in words resorts to common understanding.
    Its wording is lucid to all
    And the humor in it tickles all”
   (“諧之言皆也;辭淺會俗,皆悅笑也.”).

It is followed by various examples from Chinese history to justify, not the definition, but the function of humor and humoristic discourse. Liu Xie later comments that it is pardonable “even if there are twists and turns in words which aim to serve a righteous cause” (辭雖傾回,意歸義正也.). Humor, when otherwise exercised, constitutes nothing but “a scornful language and an insolent attitude” (詆嫚媟弄). To conclude, when humor is worded and put to use, not in a good cause which justifies the unusual use of language, it merely produces a foul language that frustrates the moral purpose of rhetoric” (“曾是莠言,有虧德音”). The paragraph on yin is likewise developed and structured.

Liu Xie’s viewpoint of humor in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons reveals a strong teleological streak. Humor, after all, arises from an anomaly of language. This anomaly is allowed only when it serves a moral, righteous cause. It is almost a necessary evil that comes in handy when an official approach fails. Humor proceeds from where a moral purpose prevails. Humor is deemed a peripheral device, an alternative means, a tool, to do justice. It is “allowed flexibility” under certain circumstances, but it is not encouraged in its own end without a moral purpose. Humor is, to Liu Xie, teleological, or purpose-oriented.

Humor in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons

Liu Xie (劉勰, courtesy name Yan-he 彥和; ca. 465-520), in his work of literary criticism, (Wen Xin Diao Long 文心雕龍, the first comprehensive aesthetic work of literary theory and criticism in Chinese history, divided into 50 chapters; better known among western sinologists as The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons) deals with humor, or more precisely, the function of humor. In The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, the canonical work of Chinese literary criticism in verse, humor (諧 xie2) is placed side by side with innuendo (讔 yin3) under discussion (Yes. The close relation between humor and innuendo is suggested in Tractatus Coislinianus, and noted by Lane Cooper and Figueroa-Dorrego & Larkin-Galiñanes. See the first quote of Tractatus Coislinianus posted under “Tractatus Coislinianus, the fragmented threatise”).*

Xie and yin, according to Liu Xie, share a mutual origin and a common goal. Both result from corollary rhetorical development in feudal times; both attempt to sway oligarchic authorities in order to curb iniquity or serve the public. Part of a poem is quoted in “Xieyin(諧讔),”Chapter 15 of The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, to elaborate on their origin:

“When a monarch begins to distance himself,
    In body and mind, in thoughts and otherwise,
    From his people, whom he calls commoners,
    He, in due course, drives them into madness.”

—The Book of Odes, Greater Odes of the Kingdom, Sang Rou*

This is the political climate in which people seek a means to voice their pain or to word their contempt, and yet at the same time the means has to allow them enough subtlety that exonerates them from any blame or charge. In other words, this political climate gives birth to xie and yin. They are both derivative rhetorical skills from the feudal times when people seek to secure their rights along with their lives. Hence and henceforth, “words wrought in xie and phrases framed in yin remain in use” (諧辭讔言,亦無棄矣.).

(to be continued)

*In the English translation by Yang Guobin (楊國斌), the chapter on humor and innuendo (諧讔; Chapter 15) is entitled “Jesting Rhymes and Puzzles” (which is at first very puzzling), while Vincent Yu-chung Shih (or Shi Youzhong 施友忠), in his translation, renders the chapter title into “Humor and Enigma.” On the translation of xie (諧), I agree with Shih; yet for yin (讔), I think “innuendo” serves as a better equivalent in the English language. The character yin, which etymologically means “hidden words” or a message “hidden in words”, usually refers to the planting of a veiled meaning between the lines, and, with its metaphorical use of a word, phrase, or allusion to a story, it aims to achieve certain admonition or awakening through insinuation. In terms of its resort to insinuation and the fact that yin is a term which defines a rhetorical skill, I suggest yin be translated into English as innuendo, which is a familiar rhetorical term with a similar definition to yin’s.

*The original line is : “自有肺腸,俾民卒狂 (from 詩經 大雅, 桑柔; the English translation is mine.).” It is part of a poem by Rui Liang-Fu (芮良夫), a royal subject in the Zhou Dynasty. In the fully annotated edition published by 三民書局 (ed. 羅立乾. ISBN: 957-14-3045-5), it is recorded on Page 143. I recommend this edition (and I think my supervisor at Leiden University would do the same), if you are ever interested in the original text of Liu Xie’s work.

De Elocutione: Grace & Charm of Humor

De Elocutione (On Style), allegedly by Demetrius Phalereus, bears similarities to Tractatus Coislinianus in that it is likewise related to Aristotle’s theories and concerned with the production of humor. Opinions clash over its author and date (See Figueroa-Dorrego & Larkin-Galiñanes, Footnote 10, 32).

De Elocutione defines four types of style: the elevated, the elegant, the plain, and the forcible. Among them, the elegant style alone addresses the production of laughter and the humoristic discourse. For Demetrius (since De Elocutione is always attributed to Demetrius: Demetrius Phalereus, Demetrius of Plutarch... The only problem is that there is no telling which Demetrius is the author.), the elegant style is characterized by two qualities: grace and charm.

Grace may arise from terse wording, designed syntax, figures of speech, or unexpected play of words. In the latter part of the discussion of the elegant style, Demetrius elaborates on charm while distinguishing “the humorous” and “the charming”:

                         --table content based on Figueroa-Dorrego & Larkin-Galiñanes 33

As stated above, the elegant style, which addresses laughter and humor, is characterized by grace and charm: grace comes from the unexpected and unconventional use of language; charm lies in a virtuous, pleasurable, and poetic verbal delivery wrought with wit. Humor then (humor in its general, modern sense; not humor in Demetrius’ “the humorous”) is a high-brow performance of language skill applied to a proper object (a person or an inanimated item) on a proper occasion without hurting feelings and with a demonstration of wit.

According to Figueroa-Dorrego & Larkin-Galiñanes, Demetrius sides with Aristotle, for, like Aristotle, he agrees that “humour depends on incongruity” and sees the use of humor “as a rhetorical or stylistic device” (32-33).

The following link will lead you to a site dedicated to the complete English translation of De Elocutione by W. Rhys Roberts (1858-1929). Since the webpage offers no means to contact the compiler of the on-line e-text of De Elocutione and late Mr. Roberts’ translation may well enter the public domain, I then take the liberty to share the link here:
http://fxylib.znufe.edu.cn/wgfljd/%B9%C5%B5%E4%D0%DE%B4%C7%D1%A7/pw/demetrius/index.htm
If this link or the linked website raises any copyright issue, please let me know. I shall remove the link immediately.

The source site of the above link features three translated works by W. Rhys Roberts, including On Style (De Elocutione), On the Sublime by pseudo-Longinus, and Rhetoric by Aristotle:
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Roberts%2C%20W.%20Rhys%20(William%20Rhys)%2C%201858-1929

Tractatus Coislinianus, the fragmented threatise

The Tractatus Coislinianus, with its content heavily based on Aristotle’s Poetics, is a fragment of a treatise on comedy. According to devoted scholars to its academic value, such as Lane Cooper, this fragment is dated no earlier than the first century BC. (An Aristotelian Theory of Comedy, with an Adaptation of the Poetics and a Translation of the Tractatus Coislinianus. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1927. 14.) The anonymous author of Tractatus Coislinianus asserts that “laughter is an essential element in the nature of comedy” (Figueroa-Dorrego & Larkin-Galiñanes 30).

[Comedy is] an imitation of an action that is ludicrous and imperfect, […] through pleasure and laughter effecting the purgation of the like emotion. It has laughter for its mother. […] [I]n comedies there should be a due proportion of laughter.--Tractatus Coislinianus *

The joker will make game of faults in the soul and in the body. […] Comedy differs from abuse, since abuse openly censures the bad qualities attaching [to men], whereas comedy requires the so-called emphasis [? or ‘innuendo’ ].--Tractatus Coislinianus *

*All quotes of Tractatus Coislinianus are translated by Lane Cooper.

By referring to Aristotle (Rhetoric, III, 11), Tractatus Coislinianus (the listing), and John Morreall (Taking Laughter Seriously. 16), Figueroa-Dorrego and Larkin-Galiñanes observe that there is a common interest which focuses on incongruity—failed expectations, disjointed narratives, deviations from patterns—as what causes laughter. Laughter is therefore not an experience of envy or malice; laughter is an experience of unexpected yet enjoyable incongruity which enables “a shift in focus from the emotional to the cognitive side of humour” (32).

Aristotle on Comedy & Laughter (II)

In Book IV, Chapter 8 of The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle distinguishes two types of humour: 1) the tasteful and moderate type—characteristic of the eutrapelos, the ready-witted. 2) the boorish and excessive type—typical of the bomolochos, the buffoon.—Figueroa-Dorrego & Larkin-Galiñanes 27.

Those who carry humour to excess are thought to be vulgar buffoons, striving after humour at all costs, and aiming rather at raising a laugh than at saying what is becoming and at avoiding pain to the object t of their fun; while those who can neither make a joke themselves nor put up with those who do are thought to be boorish and unpolished (1128a).

For Aristotle, eutrapelia is a social virtue. In Rhetoric, Book I, Chapter 11, he includes relaxation and amusement in the category of “pleasant things,” because they are “free from any element of compulsion” (1370a 15-17). Laughter, too, is later added to the list, since “ludicrous things are pleasant, whether men, words, or deeds” (1372a).

※ the above two paragraphs though are quotes of Aristotle, the observation and wording are taken from Figueroa-Dorrego & Larkin-Galiñanes 28

Irony better befits a gentleman than buffoonery; the ironical man jokes to amuse himself, the buffoon to amuse other people.—The Nicomachean Ethics 1419b.

[T]he rhetorical analysis of humour provided most of the major contributions to humour studies from Antiquity to the Early Modern period. It presents humour from a dignified and pragmatic perspective, although it is a view too frequently conditioned by the aims, situation, and social status of the expected practitioners.—Figueroa-Dorrego & Larkin-Galiñanes 30

“Liveliness” can be enhanced “by the further power of surprising the hearer; because the hearer expected something different, his acquisition of the new idea impresses him all the more.”—Rhetoric 1412a 19-20.

According to John Morreall (Taking Laughter Seriously. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press. 16), Aristotle is the first one to suggest the Incongruity Theory of Humour by pointing out that a humorous effect is produced by setting up a certain expectation in the listeners and then surprising them with something they did not expect.—Figueroa-Dorrego & Larkin-Galiñanes 30.

Sima Qian (司馬遷) & "Biographies of Jesters" (or Guji Liezhuan 滑稽列傳)

〈滑稽列傳第六十六〉*

孔子曰：「六蓺於治一也。〔一〕禮以節人，樂以發和，書以道事，詩以達意，易以神化，春秋以義。」太史公曰：天道恢恢，豈不大哉！談言微中，亦可以解紛。－《史記三家注》‧史記卷一百二十六

*索隱按：滑，亂也；稽，同也。言辨捷之人言非若是，說是若非，言能亂異同也。
〔一〕正義言六蓺之文雖異，禮節樂和，導民立政，天下平定，其歸一揆。至於談言微中，亦以解其紛亂，故治一也。

Never had the word “humor” managed to find its equivalent in the Chinese language until Lin Yu-Tang (林語堂, the author of the voluminous work in English, Moment in Peking 京華煙雲) coined the phrase “youmo” (幽默). The notion of humor, the comic, or eutrapelia has long existed in the Chinese culture, but with a slightly different definition in its cultural context, the notion has, for thousands of years, been known and worded as “guji” (滑稽).

As annotated here, gu (滑) stands for conflict or difference of opinion, while ji (稽) designates concord or agreement. The oxymoronic combination of the two characters aims to tell of the preposterous nature of a situation or verbal delivery. The phrase guji therefore originally refers to the sophistic rhetoric to right the wrong or to wrong the right. By a twist or spin on a remark, a guji (here used as an adjective) orator is able to conceal contradiction in agreement or to reveal agreement in contradiction (How strikingly similar its use is to that of irony!).*

In his Records of the Grand Historian (史記, the first Jizhuanti-style history of China), Sima Qian (the best-known “Prefect of the Grand Scribe” 太史令, hence the honorific title 太史公), the Father of Chinese Historiography, highly praises the witty skill and tact in conversation and what it may achieve, through an analogy between guji and the Confucian Six Arts (liuyi 六蓺, namely 六藝).**

According to Confucius, the Six Arts, though each takes on a unique approach, eventually reaches their mutual, ultimate goal (presumably, integrity or the identity of junzi 君子). Sima Qian’s analogy insinuates that guji, as an alternative orator’s virtue which deviates from the plain-and-honest speaking principle and differs from the authority-confronting historian attitude, may with subtlety serve the same purpose of advising a monarch, settling a discord, and reaching a consensus (now we see how the idea of “smoothing out” fits!).

*Another etymological interpretation of guji is that gu (with an alternative pronunciation hua2) means “smooth (as an adjective), to smooth out (as a verb), accordingly, to proceed;” while ji means “rough (said of a surface, as an adjective), to roughen (as a verb), consequently, to stop a process.” By this interpretation, guji refers to the gift of glibness and eloquence that “smooths out the rough” or “roughens the smooth,” namely, to manipulate minds and situations through the manipulation of language. The basic implication of the spin-doctor image remains the same.

**A similar idea to the Seven Liberal Arts as subsumed under the Trivium (grammar, rhetoric, logic) and the Quadrivium (arithmetic, astronomy, music, geometry) that essential fields of studies help impart norm and knowledge and help develop a sound mind. The Confucian Six Arts include etiquette (li 禮), music (yue 樂), archery (she 射), charioteering (yü 御), literacy and calligraphy (shu1 書), reckoning and mathematics (shu4 數).

Aristotle on Comedy & Laughter (I)

Aristotle comments that man is “the only animal that laughs” (On the Parts of Animals III, 10). This comment is taken by Barry Sanders as a proof that Aristotle dignifies laughter as a sign of humanity (Sudden Glory. Laughter as Subversive History. Boston: Beacon Press, 1995. 101-102.).

Aristotle does think that eutrapelia (wittiness that renders conversation pleasant) makes for a virtue and humour serves as a rhetorical device. Nevertheless, when he speaks of comedy, we may sense that he does so with the same breath of Plato:

[Comedy is] an imitation of men worse than the average; worse, however, not as regards any and every sort of fault, but only as regards one particular kind, the Ridiculous, which is a species of the Ugly. The Ridiculous may be defined as a mistake or deformity not productive of pain or harm to others; the mask, for instance, that excites laughter, is something ugly and distorted without causing pain.--Poetics, Chapter 5, 1449a.

--table content based on Figueroa-Dorrego & Larkin-Galiñanes 26

It is a great loss that most part of the passage on comedy in Poetics is missing. While Leon Golden attempts to reason out what Aristotle might have suggested, we pay our respect to his research (“Aristotle on Comedy.” The Journal of Aesthetic and Art Criticism 42. 3: 283-290.) with due reserve.

from Chia-Hung Max Lin: Heidegger on Boredom

Chia-Hung Max Lin, one of my best friends and comrades in the “academic detention,” quoted Martin Heidegger (yes, we all hate the way Heidegger looks!) as he responded to my mentioning of boredom:

"Profound boredom, drifting here and there in the abysses of our existence like a muffling fog, removes all things and men and oneself along with it into a remarkable indifference. This boredom reveals beings as a whole"--What is Metaphysics? (1929)

If boredom can be defined as a state of wandering attention, lack of intention, and failure of arousal, one can detect without efforts that boredom too is an emotion. We all know what Plato would say (or attributing his words to Socrates and says) about emotions--irrational, irresponsible, harmful...

Thanks to Heidegger, we are given two works in length on the subject of boredom/die Langeweile (früher lange Weile): The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics & What is Metaphysics? The book on literary studies, Boredom, (which is my first purchase of its kind for my personal library and is somehow never read through...sigh!) inevitably deals with the Heideggerian notion of boredom.

Here are some of the typical takes on boredom, and please excuse me for adding a few tongue-in-cheek ones:

• Psychoanalytically speaking: Boredom is a state of malaise, close to anxiety, characterized by a feeling of emptiness. (Sigmund Freud says that it is not a symptom; Sándor Ferenczi sees that it may lead to the development of anxiety.)
• Psychologically speaking: Boredom is "an unpleasant, transient affective state in which the individual feels a pervasive lack of interest in and difficulty concentrating on the current activity" (C. D. Fisher).*
• Philosophically speaking: Boredom is a rupture discerned between the malaise-inflicting milieu and the decreptic or numbed self, wherefrom inherent anxiety along with existentialist thoughts loom large (Blaise Pascal, Arthur Schopenhauer, Søren Kierkegaard, and Martin Heidegger).
• Sociologically speaking: Boredom is when you have too much free time and too few friends.
• Financially speaking: Boredom is when you have too many days off and too little money for a trip.
• Gastronomically speaking: Boredom is the combination of a craving and an empty snack drawer.
• Scatologically speaking: Boredom is when you finish everything you can read while forcing your bowel movement and yet end up sitting on the toilet bowl without anything else to read.

*Psychology defines three types of boredom (The first is when we are prevented from engaging in something, the second is when we are forced to engage in an unwanted activity and the third is when we are for no known reason unable to engage in an activity. ), while Joseph Brodsky in his work, In Praise of Boredom, speaks of four (Occasional Boredom: bored at something in particular; Wearisome Boredom: bored of too much of the same thing/ boredom of satiety; Existential Boredom: bored of boredom; Creative Boredom - emotio-intellectualrecuperation).

Plato on Comedy & Laughter (II)

For Plato, laughter is an emotion and therefore irrational. It is problematic because it is easily overindulged. Intellectual and moral training are necessary to help us control our instincts. Reason must restrain our emotions so that we do not indulge in them excessively. When dealing with the theory of art in Part X, Book X of The Republic, Socrates explains to Glaucon that poets intend to gratify our instinctive desires and thus move us to pity or laughter. In the same way that we should not pity the misfortunes of others too much, we should not laugh at them. Socrates focuses on what he considers the shameful nature of humour, which he again related to vulgarity and foolishness. You should detest jokes both on the stage and in ordinary life, because with them “[y]ou are giving rein to your comic instinct, which your reason has restrained for fear you may seem to be playing the fool, and bad taste in the theatre may insensibly lead you into becoming a buffoon at home” (606c). So we can say that humour, like literature, kindles our passions “and makes them control us when we ought, in the interests of our own greater welfare and happiness, to control them” (606d).—Figueroa-Dorrego & Larkin-Galiñanes 22

When [in Philebus] Socrates explains to Protarchus his theory about “mixed feelings,” he uses the humour of comedies as an example of how “the soul experiences a mixed feeling of pain and pleasure” (48a). Thus he provides the often quoted basic argumentation for the so-called “Ambivalence Theory of Humour” (Keith-Spiegel 1972: 10), as well as one of the earliest exponents of the better-known “Superiority Theory of Humour” (Morreall 1983: 4). According to Socrates, laughter is produced by a simultaneous feeling of pain and pleasure resulting from envy and malice. The nature of the ludicrous is vice and, in particular, self-ignorance, which is normally shown in a vain conceit of wealth, beauty, or wisdom. The laughable person thinks himself or herself richer, better-looking, and cleverer that s/he is. Of the two types of conceited humankind—the powerful and hurtful, and the powerless and harmless—only the latter are ridiculous, because the former are rather detestable. As self-ignorance is a misfortune, and as we feel pleasure in laughing at our friends’ misfortunes, and envy is the source of that pleasure, Socrates concludes:

Then the argument shows that when we laugh at the folly of our friends, pleasure, in mingling with envy, mingles with pain, for evny has been acknowledged by us to be mental pain, and laughter is pleasant; and so we envy and laugh at the same instant. (50b)

Our laughing at harmless, self-deluded, unfortunate friends involves a certain malice towards them, and malice is harmful. So we must gather that laughing is wrong, because it is harmful. This is one of the oldest objections to humour: that it is hostile and antisocial (Morreall 1989: 243-4). As we have seen when dealing with the Laws and The Republic, Plato also contributed to expound the other two major features which arouse disapproval of humour: that it is irrational and irresponsible. Plato’s comments about laughter and comedy, therefore, were instrumental in generating negative ideas about humour. *

*See also Morreall (1983: 85), where he outlines the three main negative approaches to humour as aesthetic experience: 1) that it exposes us to something base, and therefore is potentially harmful; 2) that it makes us lose control of our rational faculties, and consequently dehumanises us; and 3) that it is basically scornful and antisocial.—Figueroa-Dorrego & Larkin-Galiñanes 23-24

*Keith-Speigel, Patricia 1972. “Early Conceptions of Humor: Varieties and Issues.” The Psychology of Humor. Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Issues. Eds. J.H. Goldstein and P.E. McGhee. New York: Academic Press. 3-39.
*Morreall, John 1983. Taking Laughter Seriously. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press.
* --- 1989. “The Rejection of Humor in Western Thought.” Philosophy East and West 39: 243-265.

Plato on Comedy & Laughter (I)

A comic poet, or maker of iambic or satirical lyric verse, shall not be permitted to ridicule any of the citizens, either by word or likeness, either in anger or without anger. And if any one is disobedient, the judges shall either at once expel him from the country, or he shall pay a fine of three minae...--Plato (Laws, Book XI, 936b)

In [Laws] Book VII, the Athenian Stranger tells Cleinias that in comedies laughter is produced by showing "uncomely persons and thoughts" (816d). Virtuous free people must know what is laughable, but only to avoid it themselves. They should never participate in comic performances, because that would mean imitating spiteful actions and, consequently, violating the virtue they should aim at. Comic acting should be left to "slaves and hired strangers," i.e., to the lower class, who are not supposed to have any commitment to notions of honour or virtue. For Plato, then, humour production is to become a sign of social differentiation: not all members of society should engage in humour in the same manner.--The Source Book ed. by Jorge Figueroa-Dorrego & Cristina Larkin-Galiñanes 21

[T]hrough Socrates' words, Plato associates the humour of comedy with vice and offence, and makes it unworthy of the elevated concerns of the ideal upper class. [...] Socrates had told Adeimantus that "we don't want our guardians to be too fond of laughter either. Indulgence in violent laughter commonly invites a violent reactions" (388e). This obviously related humour to violence. [...] The elite should not indulge in excessive laughter, not only in real life but also in literature: "We must not therefore allow descriptions of reputable characters being overcome by laughter. And similar descriptions of gods are far less allowable" (389a).Then Socrates quotes from the passage of the Iliad (I. 599-600) in which the gods laugh at Hephaestus's limping. So laughter is not only wrong because it is produced by the contemplation of vice, but also because it can make us lose rational control of ourselves, so we may become unsympathetic and even violent.--Figueroa-Dorrego & Larkin-Galiñanes 21-22 (Socrates as quoted by Plato in The Republic, Book III, Part III)