Lord Henry Home Kames

RIDICULE.

THis subject has puzzled and vexed all the critics. Aristotle gives a definition of ridicule, obscure and imperfect[9]. Cicero handles it at great length[10]; but without giving any satisfaction. He wanders in the dark, and misses the distinction betwixt risible and ridiculous. Quintilian is sensible of this distinction[11]; but has not attempted to explain it. Luckily this subject lies no longer in obscurity. A risible object produceth an emotion of laughter merely[12]. A ridiculous object is improper as well as risible; and produceth a mixt emotion, which is vented by a laugh of derision or scorn[13].

Having therefore happily unravelled the abstruse and knotty part, I proceed to what may be thought further necessary upon this subject.

Burlesque is one great engine of ridicule. But it is not confined to that subject; for it is clearly distinguishable into burlesque that excites laughter merely, and burlesque that provokes derision or ridicule. A grave subject in which there is no impropriety, may be brought down by a certain colouring so as to be risible. This is the case of Virgil Travestie[14]. And it is the case of the Secchia Rapita[15]. The authors laugh first at every turn, in order to make their readers laugh. The Lutrin is a burlesque poem of the other sort. The author Boileau, lays hold of a low and trifling incident to expose the luxury, indolence, and contentious spirit of a set of monks. He turns the subject into ridicule by dressing it in the heroic style, and affecting to consider it as of the utmost dignity and importance; and though ridicule is the poet’s aim, he himself carries all along a grave face, and never once bewrays a smile. The opposition betwixt the subject and the manner of handling it, is what produces the ridicule. In a composition of this kind, no image professedly ludicrous ought to have quarter; because such images destroy the contrast.

Though the burlesque that aims at ridicule, produces its effect by elevating the style far above the subject, yet it has limits beyond which the elevation ought not to be carried. The poet, consulting the imagination of his readers, ought to confine himself to such images as are lively and readily apprehended. A strained elevation, soaring above an ordinary reach of fancy, makes not a pleasant impression. The mind fatigued with being always upon the stretch, is soon disgusted; and if it perseveres, becomes thoughtless and indifferent. Further, a fiction gives no pleasure, unless where painted in so lively colours as to produce some perception of reality; which never can be done effectually where the images are formed with labour or difficulty. For these reasons, I cannot avoid condemning the Batrachomuomachia said to be the composition of Homer. It is beyond the power of imagination, to form a clear and lively image of frogs and mice acting with the dignity of the highest of our species: nor can we form a conception of the reality of such an action, in any manner so distinct as to interest our affections even in the slightest degree.

The Rape of the Lock is of a character clearly distinguishable from those now mentioned. It is not properly a burlesque performance, but what may rather be termed an heroi-comical poem. It treats a gay and familiar subject, with pleasantry and with a moderate degree of dignity. The author puts not on a mask like Boileau, nor professes to make us laugh like Tassoni. The Rape of the Lock is a genteel and gay species of writing, less strained than the others mentioned; and is pleasant or ludicrous without having ridicule for its chief aim; giving way however to ridicule where it arises naturally from a particular character, such as that of Sir Plume. Addison’s Spectator upon the exercise of the fan[16] is extremely gay and ludicrous, resembling in its subject the Rape of the Lock.

Humour belongs to the present chapter, because it is undoubtedly connected with ridicule. Congreve defines humour to be “a singular and unavoidable manner of doing or saying any thing, peculiar and natural to one man only, by which his speech and actions are distinguished from those of other men.” Were this definition just, a majestic and commanding air, which is a singular property, is humour; as also that natural flow of eloquence and correct elocution which is a rare talent. Nothing just or proper is denominated humour; nor any singularity of character, words, or actions, that is valued or respected. When we attend to the character of an humorist, we find that the peculiarity of this character lessens the man in our esteem: we find that this character arises from circumstances both risible and improper, and therefore in some measure ridiculous.

Humour in writing is very different from humour in character. When an author insists upon ludicrous subjects with a professed purpose to make his readers laugh, he may be styled a ludicrous writer; but is scarce intitled to be styled a writer of humour. This quality belongs to an author, who, affecting to be grave and serious, paints his objects in such colours as to provoke mirth and laughter. A writer that is really an humorist in character, does this without design. If not, he must affect the character in order to succeed. Swift and Fontaine were humorists in character, and their writings are full of humour. Addison was not an humorist in character; and yet in his prose writings a most delicate and refined humour prevails. Arbuthnot exceeds them all in drollery and humorous painting; which shows a great genius, because, if I am not misinformed, he had nothing of this peculiarity in his character.

There remains to show, by examples, the manner of treating subjects so as to give them a ridiculous appearance.

Orleans. I know him to be valiant.

Constable. I was told that by one that knows him better than you.

Orleans. What’s he?

Constable. Marry, he told me so himself; and he said, he car’d not who knew it.

Henry V. Shakespear.

In the following instances the ridicule is made to appear from the behaviour of the persons introduced.

So sharp-sighted is pride in blemishes, and so willing to be gratified, that it will take up with the very slightest improprieties; such as a blunder by a foreigner in speaking our language, especially if the blunder can bear a sense that reflects upon the speaker:

Love-speeches are finely ridiculed in the following passage.

Irony turns things into ridicule in a peculiar manner. It consists in laughing at a man under disguise, by appearing to praise or speak well of him. Swift affords us many illustrious examples of this species of ridicule. Take the following example. “By these methods, in a few weeks, there starts up many a writer, capable of managing the profoundest and most universal subjects. For what though his head be empty, provided his commonplace book be full? And if you will bate him but the circumstances of method, and style, and grammar, and invention; allow him but the common privileges of transcribing from others, and digressing from himself, as often as he shall see occasion; he will desire no more ingredients towards fitting up a treatise that shall make a very comely figure on a bookseller’s shelf, there to be preserved neat and clean, for a long eternity, adorned with the heraldry of its title, fairly inscribed on a label; never to be thumbed or greased by students, nor bound to everlasting chains of darkness in a library; but when the fullness of time is come, shall happily undergo the trial of purgatory, in order to ascend the sky[17].” The following passage from Arbuthnot is not less ironical. “If the Reverend clergy showed more concern than others, I charitably impute it to their great charge of souls; and what confirmed me in this opinion was, that the degrees of apprehension and terror could be distinguished to be greater or less, according to their ranks and degrees in the church[18].”

A parody must be distinguished from every species of ridicule. It enlivens a gay subject by imitating some important incident that is serious. It is ludicrous, and may be risible. But ridicule is not a necessary ingredient. Take the following examples, the first of which refers to an expression of Moses.

The next is an imitation of Achilles’s oath in Homer.

The following imitates the history of Agamemnon’s sceptre in Homer.

Ridicule, as observed above, is no necessary ingredient in a parody. But I did not intend to say, that there is any opposition betwixt them. A parody, no doubt, may be successfully employed to promote ridicule; witness the following example, in which the goddess of Dullness is addressed upon the subject of modern education.

The interposition of the gods in the manner of Homer and Virgil, ought to be confined to ludicrous subjects, which are much enlivened by such interposition handled in the form of a parody; witness the cave of Spleen, Rape of the Lock, canto 4.; the goddess of Discord; Lutrin, canto 1.; and the goddess of Indolence, canto 2.

Those who have a talent for ridicule, which is seldom united with a taste for delicate and refined beauties, are quick-sighted in improprieties; and these they eagerly lay hold of, in order to gratify their favourite propensity. The persons galled have no other refuge but to maintain, that ridicule ought not to be applied to grave subjects. It is yielded, on the other hand, that subjects really grave and important, are by no means fit for ridicule: but then it is urged, that ridicule is the only proper test for discovering whether a subject be really grave, or be made so artificially by custom and fashion. This dispute has produced a celebrated question, Whether ridicule be or be not a test of truth? I give this question a place here, because it tends to illustrate the nature of ridicule.

The question stated in accurate terms is, Whether the sense of ridicule be the proper test for distinguishing ridiculous objects from those that are not so? To answer this question with precision, I must premise, that ridicule is not a subject of reasoning, but of sense or taste[20]. This being taken for granted, I proceed thus. No person doubts that our sense of beauty is the true test of what is beautiful, and our sense of grandeur, of what is great or sublime. Is it more doubtful whether our sense of ridicule be the true test of what is ridiculous? It is not only the true test, but indeed the only test. For this is a subject that comes not, more than beauty or grandeur, under the province of reason. If any subject, by the influence of fashion or custom, have acquired a degree of veneration or esteem to which naturally it is not intitled, what are the proper means for wiping off the artificial colouring, and displaying the subject in its true light? Reasoning, as observed, cannot be applied. And therefore the only means is to judge by taste. The test of ridicule which separates it from its artificial connections, exposes it naked with all its native improprieties.

But it is urged, that the gravest and most serious matters may be set in a ridiculous light. Hardly so; for where an object is neither risible nor improper, it lies not open in any quarter to an attack from ridicule. But supposing the fact, I foresee not any harmful consequence. By the same sort of reasoning, a talent for wit ought to be condemned, because it may be employed to burlesque a great or lofty subject. Such irregular use made of a talent for wit or ridicule, cannot long impose upon mankind. It cannot stand the test of correct and delicate taste; and truth will at last prevail even with the vulgar. To condemn a talent for ridicule because it may be perverted to wrong purposes, is not a little ridiculous. Could one forbear to smile, if a talent for reasoning were condemned because it also may be perverted? And yet the conclusion in the latter case, would be not less just than in the former; perhaps more just, for no talent is so often perverted as that of reason.

We had best leave Nature to her own operations. The most valuable talents may be abused, and so may that of ridicule. Let us bring it under proper culture if we can, without endeavouring to pull it up by the root. Were we destitute of this test of truth, I know not what might be the consequences: I see not what rule would be left us to prevent splendid trifles passing for matters of importance, show and form for substance, and superstition or enthusiasm for pure religion.