ism, in that it sacrifices truth and sincerity for the sake of emotional dissipation; only its methods are cruder and more violent, and it results psychologically not in the hypersensitiveness of the sentimentalist, but in the blunting of the very sensibilities which make its appeal possible. It thus soon defeats its own ends, and its periodic recurrences in the history of any art are likely to be short lived. CHAPTER VIII HUMOR IN POETRY I In several of the foregoing discussions, notably those on satire and on the correctives of sentimentalism, we have had occasion to touch on the element of humor. Enough has probably already been said in these connections to point to the desirability of some more detailed study of the general relations of poetry and humor. One approaches the subject with considerable hesitation, because, abundant as are the critical treatises on either subject, it is hard to find any serious attempt to deal with the one as an element in the other, or to discuss how the presence of humor affects the more constant and fundamental factors of poetry. On our previous topics there have been authorities whom we could follow when we saw fit; here we have not even any one to differ from. In the use of the term "humor" hitherto, the orthodox view has been assumed, that its essence lies in the perception of incongruity, using this phrase in the widest possible sense. I shall continue to make this assumption, and shall use the word to denote all the more important forms in which the ludicrous appears in literature. There is, of course, a more limited sense, in which humor is contrasted with wit, or with irony, or with satire; and in which geniality, or sympathy, or kindliness may be regarded as essentials; but for the present purpose we need the more comprehensive sense. Some of the finer distinctions may develop as we proceed. The difficulty which first meets us may perhaps be best realized if the reader tries to call to mind a line of undoubted high poetic quality which is distinctly humorous, and in which the poetry and humor are not successive but interfused. It is not very hard to find humorous lines in good poetry, or poetical lines in humorous verse; but the single lines showing both qualities in a high degree and simultaneously is rarer. Such lists of examples of great poetry as Matthew Arnold's "touchstones" are useless here, and one will search volumes of "Poetic Gems" in vain. As You Like It is a brilliant example of a comedy abounding in both humor and poetry, but what line could be cited from it to illustrate both? Take the most famous speech in it - that beginning, "All the world's a stage." It is spoken by Jaques, who is generally taken as a humorous character; and hardly any piece of poetry written by Shakespeare seems to have had a wider appeal. Its poetical merit consists in the series of vivid images of human types, brought before us in language of unsurpassable aptness and conciseness. It contains no lofty flight of the imagination: the general conception enclosing this series of images is the commonplace one of the world as a theatre, a comparison hackneyed centuries before Shakespeare, obvious to begin with, and never very true. Its humorous element lies in the ludicrous view of human nature presented to us : infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice, pantaloon, dotard, all appear more or less absurd, ridiculous because of some contrast between appearance and reality, all included in the general incongruity between such contemptible figures and the supposed dignity of human nature. The humor, that is, is the humor of cynicism, the favorite method of which is an exaggerated realism. A typical line is that on the lover : The humor here is undeniable, but you would hardly quote it to show what you mean by high poetical quality. Yet the consideration of this case may be made to throw light on the situation. The perception of incongruity involves, first, the use of our critical faculties, and of the rational and normal as standards of judgment. It is not likely then to be notably absent from poetry in which the rational element predominates; and, as a matter of fact, humor has flourished in classical periods. Thus there seems to be no antipathy between humor and that element of poetry we have called reason. Again, a frequent source of humor is the incongruity between appearance and reality, between the pretence and the fact. A strong sense of fact, then, though by no means always accompanied by humor, is by no means incompatible with it. We have just seen Jaques producing his piece of cynical humor by holding up the unseemly facts of human life in implied contrast with our racial self-esteem, and earlier we discussed a triumph of humorous realism in The Jolly Beggars. Here also we find no antipathy between humor and that element of poetry we have called the sense of fact. |