Picture taken from "Dizionario del pensiero cristiano alternativo." ERESIE.IT.
http://www.eresie.it/it/id574.htm. January 8, 2011.
※ The following is taken intact from Figueroa-Dorrego & Larkin-Galiñanes's book, A Source Book of Literary and Philosophical Writings about Humour and Laughter (Lewiston, Queenston, Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2009. 198-200), without any of my personal critique. This blog post is therefore subject to immediate removal upon notice. ※
[...] as he [Castelvetro] intends to search for the proper kind of ludicrous matter for comedy, he believes that "the proper objects for comedy to imitate are stupid or (end of Page 198) ugly persons who are neither harmed nor pained by their stupidity or ugliness." In his analysis of the risible, Castelvetro asserts that "[l]aughter is provoked by pleasurable things apprehended by the senses or the imagination," and that these may be divided into four classes. The first has nothing to do with humour, because it is the laughter produced by the pleasure of meeting beloved people again after a long absence or by the recovery of valuable things. The second type of "pleasurable things" that raise laughter is a recurrent humoristic device in comedy: deception. The reason Castelvetro gives for the pleasure caused by the representation of deceit is that the original sin corrupted our nature so much that we delight in the ills of others as we do in our own good fortune.
And no human ills delight us more than those which proceed from the faculty peculiar to man, namely, the reason; for when others are deceived in our presence we assume that we are superior to them, and superior in the very faculty which makes man akin to God and sets him far above all other creatures. (On the Art of Poetry)
Castelvetro's explanation of why people laugh when others are deceived is not, therefore, very different from that given by what will later be called the Superiority Theory of Humour. Yet Castelvetro expands on the subject and distinguishes four kinds of deception, depending on whether it is produced by: 1) ignorance, drunkenness, dreams, or delirium; 2) self-ignorance; 3) unexpected turns; or 4) machinations or chance; which is a quite good classification of the different kinds of deceits that produce risible situations in comedy.
The third category of things that give us pleasure and provoke our laughter are wickedness of soul and physical deformity. As this may sound bizarre, Castelvetro explains that it is so due to, once again, the original sin, which has made us take pleasure in the defects of others, because it contributes to our self-esteem, pride, and joy. However, we only laugh when the defects are somehow disguised and we can attribute our laughter to something else, because we are aware that such pleasure is opprobrious. And, finally, the fourth class of pleasurable things that raise laughter are sexual issues. As these lewd comments (end of Page 199) or situations are shameful, we again only laugh at them if they are somehow hidden or we are unobserved by others. Therefore, Castelvetro considers laughter too related to sinful matters, such as deception, wickedness, arrogance, and obscenity not to be kept in check. His attitude to humour then is not too different from that of Plato, the Church Fathers, the Puritans, or Hobbes. He lists many topics that may produce laughter in comedies, but ignores many other issues and devices that were pointed out by rhetoricians and that were common in contemporary plays such as mistaken identities, the conflict between appearance and reality, misunderstanding, rhetorical and dramatic irony, linguistic humour, and so on.
Glad you have found our Source Book interesting. A far as we are concerned, you don't need to remove the quotations from your blog, because they are duly referenced.
ReplyDeleteBest wishes,
Jorge Figueroa