Isaac Barrow: "Against Foolish Talking and Jesting"

Misleading though the title may be, this essay by Isaac Barrow (one of the Several Sermons on Evil-Speaking, 1678) advocates a different approach toward humor instead of dealing out a follow-up diatribe and censoring humor with a Puritan attitude.

Based on St. Paul's advice to the Ephesians: "Nor Foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient" (5:4), Barrow argues that "those words should not be understood as a condemnation of all kind of facetious speech, as was commonly done, but only of that which ws foolish and impertinent" (Figueroa-Dorrego & Larkin-Galiñanes 186).

The morose, austere, sombre Puritan approach to life, according to Barrow, may be a result from an erroneous assumption of humor, a denial of its social function, and unawareness of the decent joy due a decent Christian:

For Christianity is not so tetrical, so harsh, so envious, as to bar us continually from innocent, much less from wholesome an useful pleasure, such as human life doth need or require. And if jocular discourse may serve to good purposes of this kind; if it may be apt to raise our drooping spirits, to allay our irksome cares, to whet our blunted industry, to recreate our minds being tired and cloyed with graver occupations; if it may breed alacrity, or maintain good humour among us; if it may conduce to sweeten conversation and endear society; then it is not inconvenient, or unprofitable. ("Against Foolish Talking and Jesting")

Barrow distinguishes himself from his previous thinkers on humor, both classical and Christian, in these two aspects:

1. As a clergyman, he asserts that humor is acceptable or even recommendable in a Christian society (Figueroa-Dorrego 186).
2. His reasoning of the origin of humor is based on "a cognitive and rhetorical perspective rather than from an ethical standpoint" (ibid).*

Barrow believes in incongruity as the cause of humor effect and that different forms of incongruity  "produce surprise, admiration, and delight" (ibid). What follows is an excerpt that best reflects his observation and how incongruity functions positively in language (No doubt it will reminds us of what is said in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons by Liu Xie; article-search key word (the search box on the right): The Literary Mind).

[...] sometimes it playeth in words and phrases, taking advantage from the ambiguity of their sense, or the affinity of their sound: sometimes it is wrapped in a dress of humorous expression; sometimes it lurketh under an odd similitude; sometimes it is lodged in a sly question, in a smart answer, in a quirkish reason, in a shrewd intimation, in cunningly diverting, or cleverly retoring an objection: sometims it is couched in a bold scheme of speech, in a tart irony, in a lusty hyperbole, in a startling metaphor, in a plausible reconciling of contradictions, or in acute nonsense: [...] sometimes it riseth from a lucky hitting upon what is strange, [...] It is in short, a manner of speaking out of the simple and plain way (such as reason teacheth and proveth things by), which by a pretty surprising uncouthness in conceit or expression doth affect and amuse the fancy, stirring in it some wonder, and breeding some delight thereto. It raiseth admiration, as signifying a nimble sagacity of apprehension, a special felicity of invention, a vivacity of spirit, and reach of wit more than vulgar [...] It also procureth delight, by gratifying curiosity with its rareness or semblance of difficulty (as monsters, not for their beauty, but their rarety; as juggling tricks, not for their use, but their abstruseness, are beheld with pleasure) by diverting the mind from its road of serious thoughts; by instilling gaiety and airiness of spirit; by provoking to such dispositions of spirit in way of emulation or complainsance; and by seasoing matters, otherwise distasteful or insipid, with an unusual, and thence grateful tang. ("Against Foolish Talking and Jesting")

  

(to be continued)