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    20 Analysis ofLaughter.

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    Analysis Of Laughter

    dispenses imaginative enjoyment , how are we to account for the jests of the keenly sorrowing , thus making their own agony material for smiles—dallying with grief as if enamoured

    of its ghastliness , and finding solace in playing subtleties upon the grim contrasts it presents . These jests to the sufferer are bitter jests , in the form of the ludicrous ; they produce its effects to him , no more than a

    derisive insult from another . Standing apart as we do , and disconnected in strong interest with the passion , a contrast with it may excite our laughter , as an inattentive or uncongenial spectator has laughed at Old Gaunt ' s reference to his

    name . This contrast , to the beholder amusing , to the principal is aggravation" Oh , it is Home indeed , and room enough /* cries Cassius . Had the second idea attached to the equivocal sound " Room" borne

    no relation to his immediate burning passion , it had been strange indeed that it should instinctively occur , related as it is ; with the idea of disproportionate engrossing occupancy of one

    man , its non-occurrence were not less strange . That the _strojag thoughts of an excited mind should in their passage evoke every analogy with their spirit in the most trivial thoughts that have ever been connected

    with them , is no more strange than that the eager in hope should discern it in everything relative to their desire ; The

    Analysis Of Laughter

    detection , then , of an incongruity is the first element in the cause of the sense , or pleasure " , of the ludicrous ; the discovery of the disagreement , or difference , of ideas apparently compatible .

    The second requisite for the perfection of the compound is , that the interests or feelings associated with either of the contrasted propositions should be slight , and simply Imaginative ; or , that when serious

    emotion is associated with one , it must be with the one that is superseded ; the one of which the belief is dispersed ; and that this serious passion , of which the importance is

    reduced , must not be an apprehension so intense as to produce agitation incapable of immediate reversal ; nor joy so lively _, —expectance so hopeful , —that painful grief ensues on its obliteration .

    And thirdly , —the reversal of association must be sudden ; must be immediate , and complete ; otherwise the effect , after all , is a failure . The

    suggestion of the incongruity of a " good joke / ' is more rapid than the expression ; or the expression is _purposely elliptical , that the mind addressed may meet it half way . If the expression is too minute , the surprise is injured ; and if too

    vague , it escapes notice , or requires commentary and explanation . Great art is required for the government of these differences ; especially as they acquire complication by the

    20 Analysis Oflaughter.

    20 Analysis ofLaughter .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 1, 1837, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/mrp_01071837/page/18/