The mischievous-comic, moreover, depends directly upon
sympathy; for it requires that we take the point of view of the funny
thing; our pleasure in it implies a secret sympathy for it--we hold
it up to a standard, yet all the time are in sympathy with its
rebellion. When we laugh at the prank of the child, love is mixed with
the laugh. The dual nature of man as at once a partisan of convention
and of the impulses that it seeks to regulate, is nowhere better
illustrated than in the comic. Finally, disinterestedness is not
peculiar to comedy; for it pervades all art. Feeling must be dominated
by reflection; even pathos demands this, for, if we lose ourselves in
sorrowful feeling, no fair image can arise and steady us.
There is, however, much comedy that is obviously unsympathetic, even
hostile. There is satire, which condemns, as well as humor which
pardons. The one blames the unexpected and unconventional, the other
sympathizes with it. Comedy is either biting or kindly. The one is
moralistic and reformatory in its aim, the other is aesthetic and
contemplative. Because of its failure in sympathy, satirical comedy
is incomplete as art. It provides insight and pleasure in the object,
but no union with it. It does not attain to beauty, which is free and
reconciling. Kindly comedy or humor, on the other hand, is full beauty,
combining sympathy with judgment, abandon with reflection. Nevertheless,
satire tends inevitably towards humor. For what we laugh at gives us
pleasure, and what pleases us we must inevitably come to like, and
what we like cannot long fail to win our sympathy.
Pages:
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142