Footnotes to Chapter 6: Laughter and Bisociation
1. [page 175>] According to Abhinava: By �attire� is meant the arrangement of the hair, etc; by �ornament� (is meant) bangles, etc. When both of these are incongruous, that is when contrary to place, time, nature, or condition, they become the �determinants� (vibh�vas) of hāsya. By this, it has been demonstrated that all the rasas are included in hāsya. Thus, the vidūṣaka also makes manifest the �semblance of humor� (hāsyābhāsa), by wearing such attire; but this has already been said before. When seen on another, such attire or ornaments of, say, Devadatta while performing the udghaTTaka �posture� (karaNa, in dancing�cf. Nāṭya Z�stra� 4.187) or of a buffoon dancing, etc., produce h�sa. Through attire and ornaments, imitation of others, etc. (? gatagatik�di) are also indicated.�
2.
dh�rSTyam: �effrontery� is explained by Abhinava as
�shamelessness� (nir-lajjat�), not in the sense that one reacting with laughter is
devoid of a sense of shame but that the determinant of hāsya transgressed the bounds of propriety provoking an
element of shame in the response of the spectators. Among the diverse elements
coming together to form the drama, Bharata mentions dh�rSTya caused
by eunuchs: kl�b�nam dh�rSTya-jananam
3. Abhinava: laulyam viSayeSv aniyatat�. Ficklemindedness, as in the rapid oscillation of contrary mental states or emotions.
4.
Abhinava: kuhakam kakSa-gr�v�di-sparzanam vism�pana-vidhi-prasiddham b�l�n�m
/ This is obviously more a stimulus (k�raNa
�cause�) of laughter than a determinant (vibh�va)
of hāsya. It is difficult to
see how it could be reduced to a form if incongruity, though Koestler (Insight and Outlook, pp.104-07) insists on subsuming it
under his bisociation-theory by interpreting it as �mock aggression. It is
probably the first stimulus encountered in life which makes the infant
experience a situation simultaneously in two different fields: the mother�s
tickle is a caress disguised as a mild attack. For a while theorists held that
the laughter caused by tickling is a purely physiological reflex response to a
pure physiological stimulus. But already Darwin, Crile,
and Sully had pointed out that the reflex response to tickling is squirming,
wriggling, striving to withdraw the tickled part, which may or may not be
accompanied by laughter, according to circumstances� (p.104). But this only
proves that tickling by [176>] itself
may not be a sufficient cause of laughter, but it does not necessarily exclude
a physiological component that may be inhibited or facilitated by other factors
in producing laughter. Nevertheless, as tickling comes to be closely associated
with bisociative perception, as in the mock-attacks of the mother on her child,
we find that in certain mythologies it even substitutes as a symbolic
substitute of bisociative perception as the cause of laughter. Such seems to be
the case in the tickling myths of
5.
asatpral�pa:
one of the thirteen elements (vīthyaṅga) of the riddle-play, and defined by the Dazar�paka
as �incoherent or irrelevant
talk� (asambaddha-kath�-pr�yo�sat-pral�po
yathottarah // 3.24).
The vidūṣaka,
by prescription, has to speak in this manner,
6.
Anga-vigamo vikhun�di vyangam / Abhinava.
The
7. doS� atat-prakRter api bhay�dayah ak�rya-karaN�dayaz ca vikRta-veS�daya eva v� / Abhinavagupta. �Fear, etc., in one who is not of that nature, doing what ought not to be done (i.e., transgression), etc., or simply incongruous costume, etc.� �Fear, etc.� has already been discussed earlier. It is important to note that Abhinava considers transgression, which includes the violation of socio-ritual norms, to be also a determinant (vibh�va) of hāsya, for it will be argued that this is the prime function of the vidūṣaka in the Sanskrit drama.
8.
Atha h�syo n�ma h�sa-sth�yibh�v�tmakah / sa ca
vikRta-para-veS�lank�ra-dh�rSTya-laulya-kuhak�satpral�pa-vyangadarzana-doSod�haraN�dibhir
vibh�vair utpadyate / Nāṭya Z�stra
9.
[178>]
10.
[179>] F.T. Vischer, Aesthetik,
vol. I, p.422 (Leipzig & Stuttgart, 1846-57, 3 vols., in 4). Cited
by
11.
E. Kraepelin, Zur
Psychologie des Komischen, Philosophische Studien (ed.
12.
[180>]
13.
14.
15.
M.
16.
[186>] For our purposes, we may ignore here
the typically Freudian terminology and the distinction he retains between jokes
(wit) and the comic (for both, according to him, must be automatically
processed, or otherwise they will not strike us as funny). Again in Jokes, p.204, he insists on calling this absence of
attention �automatic� instead of �unconscious,� thereby admitting that the
peculiar status of the comic process defies the conscious/unconscious
dichotomy: �I deliberately say �automatically� and not �unconsciously�, because
the latter description would be misleading. It is only a
question here of holding back an increased cathexis of attention from
the psychical process when the joke is heard�� The �automatic,� in the Freudian
analysis, seems to have a problematic and dubious existence somewhere between
the conscious and the unconscious. We have preferred to define the mechanism
responsible for the comic convulsion (O) as the object of subsidiary, instead
of focal, awareness and, hence, tacit. In The Act of
Creation,
17.
[191>]
18.
[196>] Shultz 1972 (see note 17 above);
19.
20. [191>] Shultz, see note 17 above.
�[this concludes the Footnotes to chapter 6: �Laughter and Bisociation�]