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«S Analysis ofLaughttr.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Analysis Of Laughter
EXAMPLES . The Ludicrons of Physical Incongruity *
Blunder . —For this example we will not go to Ireland —let the old story serve of the man who , to get the sparrows , shook the tree , and held his apron open under it . Bulls . —Newspaper
paragraph . — " Yesterday morning Lord Dunboyne renounced the errors of the Catholic Church , and . embraced those of the establishment . " Hie Ludicrous of Abstract Incongruity .
Pun . —A countryman carrying ; a hare was accosted" Friend — is that your own hare , or a wig . Practical Joke .
—Cromwell ' s officer insinuating his toe into his boot , brought it in contact with a hot cinder , which the Lieutenant-General had
placed there . —A practical man here . Ludicrous incongruities are thus between the intentions of an act and its effect , and between belief and the state of things which the belief is supposed to represent .
All unskilful schemes and fallacious ratiocinations have thus witnin them the germs of the ridiculous;—they are , —so far as they are not pungently pernicious—laughable in
themselves , and have a tendency to become so to us , as their character inevitably is evolved . How many respectable opinions , moving in the best society , and keeping the most _unexceptibn-
Analysis Of Laughter
able company , are in this predicament , and alas !—how hard a thing it is for one who sees through their pretensions , to hold countenance , and preserve what is called decent reverence
for these grave mountebanks !—Not that the jokes may not be enjoyed in silence , though one fain would sympathise : but the difficulty lies in subduing that perverse " tenderness of visage " —that rebellious flexure of the
involuntary muscles , which lets the dangerous secret out . Some who have disserted on this branch of philosophy , have enlarged much on the
excellence , as of a peculiar class of " jokes contrary to expectation . " But the point of every joke , as we have seen , is contrast ; its soul is
contradictiveness to expectation . Still there are degrees . Contrast may be produced , when we are expecting none ;—when the mind is most steadily composed for an
ordinary and congruous series ; and in these instances the slightest deviation from the accustomed and expected train gives the ludicrous shock . The slightest accident causes a srnile in
church ; the newspapers rfepoTt very loud laughter in Parliament at very inconsiderable pleasantries ;—and the same ensues on any other occasions when solemness of demeanour
is customary , thdugh passion is not vehemently _exercised or intently fixed . When passion is truly , thdrdtigHly engaged , the most brilliant witticism , the mast gorgeods absurdity fails to pr 0 _^
«S Analysis Oflaughttr.
« _S Analysis ofLaughttr _.
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 1, 1837, page 22, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/mrp_01071837/page/20/
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