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    Analysis ofLaughter. $$

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    Analysis Of Laughter

    _duce pleasing surprise , simply because it fails to interrupt the course of attention _. But the ludicrous contrasts which owe much of the effected

    surprise to occurrence under such conditions are always trivial : they only succeed at all by _attacking us at advantage . The contrast unexpectedly dwarfs , by the side of the unexpected contrast , the surprise which is

    produced , though imagination and memory were forewarned , and in lively excitement , to anticipate the jest . The surprise is greater here , because the mind is eluded , when most alert : —it

    is overthrown when most vigilantly on its guard . The skilful joker gives sign on his countenance , or by his tone , of the approaching jest;—he excites the interest of his hearers , and

    sustains it by affected foreshadowing and deliberateness of evolution ; puzzles his invention by elusive glimpses of its relations —and when the eager listener has disposed his expectations most exactly to the indicated approach , it takes another direction—culminates at a

    different point—unites all the scattered lines and rays in an unexpected arrangement , and bursts _fprth in a blaze of resistless effect . From the

    expected dulness coruscates brilliancy ; the vapid preparation effervesces sparklingly . — _Autolycus : I cannot tell , good Sir , for which of his virtues it was

    but be was certainly whipped out of the court . " - _?— " Clown _Vic _# s you would _say—there ' s

    Analysis Of Laughter

    no virtue whipped out of the court—they cherish it to make it stay there ; and yet it will no more but abide . "

    It is unnecessary to say , that the production of one kind of jest when another kind was expected will only enhance its effect when it betters

    expectation ;—for bitter is promise belied ; and the defalcation shifts the _ludicrousness from the jest to the utterer ; but never shines wit brighter than when it glides from within the convolutions of

    the ludicrous . The witty and the ludicrous have not generally been well distinguished . A definition of either cannot be better tested

    than by proving how nicely it excludes examples of the other ; which are so nearly related that the least fault in drawing aline admits a multitude of intruders . Some mental analysts have omitted the consideration of the

    pleasures of wit altogether , — and the index of another exhibits " Wit : see ridicule . " These are not for us . Professor Miller divides the ludicrous

    from the witty , by the distiriction , that the ludicrous is coiicerned with persons—the witty with things . But that the coi _* - trasts of personal and professional peculiarities with a _conceived propriety , which are the

    material of humour , are not the only forms of the ludicrous , is apparent from the _pleasingness of puns and conundrums , and <* such small deer / ' —which have no relations to persons ; and yet are fey no me , an _$ witty . '

    Analysis Oflaughter. $$

    Analysis ofLaughter . $$

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 1, 1837, page 23, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/mrp_01071837/page/21/