History of English Humour, Vol. 2L'Estrange, A. G. K. (Alfred Guy Kingan)
History
History of English Humour, Vol. 2
L'Estrange, A. G. K. (Alfred Guy Kingan)
English wit and humor -- History and criticism; Wit and humor -- History and criticism
In the third class we place such words as refer to the mind alone as the
source of amusement, and under this head we may place Humour as a
general and generic term. Raillery and sarcasm (from a Greek word "to
tear flesh") refer especially to the expression of the feeling in
language, and irony from its covert nature generally requires assistance
from the voice and manner. Some words refer especially to literature,
and never to any attacks made on present company. Of these, satire aims
at making a man odious or ridiculous; lampoon, contemptible. Satire is
the rapier; lampoon the broadsword, or even the cudgel--the former
points to the heart and wounds sharply, the latter deals a dull and
blundering blow, often falling wide of the mark. In general a different
man selects a different weapon; the educated and refined preferring
satire; the rude and more vulgar, lampoon--one adopting what is keen and
precise, the other seeking rough and irrelevant accessories. But clever
men, to gain others over to them by amusement, have sometimes taken the
clumsier means, and while placing their victim nearer the level of the
brutes than of humanity, have not struck so straight; for the
improbability they have introduced has in it so much that is fantastic
that their attack seems mostly playful, if not bordering on the
ludicrous.
Lampoon was the earliest kind of humorous invective; we have an instance
of it in Homer's Thersites. Buffoonery differs from lampoon in being
carried on in acting, instead of words. The latter is rather based upon
some moral delinquency or imperfection; the former aims merely at
amusement, and resembles burlesque in being generally optical, and
containing little malice. Both come under the category of broad humour,
which is excessive in accessory emotion, and in most cases deficient in
complication. Caricature resembles them both in being often concerned
with deformity. It appeals to the senses rather than to the emotions.
The complication in it is never very good when it is confined to
pictorial representation, as we may observe that without some
explanation we should seldom know what a design was intended to portray;
and when the word means description in writing it still retains some of
its original reference to sight, and is concerned principally with form
and optical similitudes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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