They provide an opportunity
for the welcome release of nature from convention. And the greater the
strain of the tension, the greater the pleasure and the more
insignificant the object or event that will bring relief and cause
laughter. The perennial comic pleasure in the risque is derived from
this source. There is an element of comic pleasure in the perpetration
of any mischievous or unconventional act. Those things which men take
most seriously, Schopenhauer has said, namely, love and religion, and
we might add, morality, are the most abundant sources of the comic,
because they involve the most strain and therefore offer the easiest
chances for a playful release. Even utter and absolute nonsense is
comical because it undoes all Kant's categories of mind.
Hence, contrary to the theory of Bergson, the spontaneous as well as
the mechanical and rigid may be comical. Sometimes the same object may
be comical from both the points of view which we have specified; this
is always true, as we shall see, in the most highly developed comedy.
For example, we may laugh at the child's prank because it is so absurd
from the point of view of our grown-up expectations as to reasonable
conduct, and at the same time, taking the part of the child, rejoice
at the momentary relief from them which it offers us. Our scorn is
mixed with sympathy. And oftentimes the child himself will hold both
points of view at once, laughing at his own absurdity and exulting
nevertheless in his own freedom.
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