Wit and its relation to the unconscious

Whoever has had occasion to examine that part of the literature of æsthetics and psychology dealing with the nature and affinities of wit, will, no doubt, concede that our philosophical inquiries have not awarded to wit the important rôle that it plays in our mental life. One can recount only a small number of thinkers who have penetrated at all deeply into the problems of wit. To be sure, among the authors on wit one finds the illustrious names of the poet Jean Paul (Fr. Richter), and of the philosophers Th. Vischer, Kuno Fischer, and Th. Lipps. But even these writers put the subject of wit in the background while their chief interest centers around the more comprehensive and more alluring problems of the comic.

In the main this literature gives the impression that it is altogether impractical to study wit except when treated as a part of the comic.

According to Th. Lipps (Komik und Humor, 1898^[12]) wit is “essentially the subjective side of the comic; i.e., it is that part of the comic which we ourselves create, which colors our conduct as such, and to which our relation is that of Superior Subject, never of Object, certainly not Voluntary Object” (p. 80). The following comment might also be added:—In general we designate as wit “every conscious and clever evocation of the comic, whether the comic element lies in the viewpoint or in the situation itself” (p. 78).

K. Fischer explains the relation between wit and the comic by the aid of caricature, which, according to his exposition, comes midway between the two (Über den Witz, 1889). The subject of the comic is the hideous element in any of its manifestations. “Where it is concealed it must be disclosed in the light of the comic view; where it is not at all or but slightly noticeable it must be rendered conspicuous and elucidated in such a manner that it becomes clear and intelligible. Thus arises caricature” (p. 45). “Our entire psychic world, the intellectual realm of our thoughts and conceptions, does not reveal itself to us on superficial consideration. It cannot be visualized directly either figuratively or intuitively, moreover it contains inhibitions, weak points, disfigurements, and an abundance of ludicrous and comical contrasts. In order to bring it out and to make it accessible to æsthetic examination, a force is necessary which is capable not only of depicting objects directly, but also of reflecting upon these conceptions and elucidating them—namely, a force capable of clarifying thought. This force is nothing but judgment. The judgment which produces the comic contrast is wit. In caricature wit has played its part unnoticed, but only in judgment does it attain its own individual form and the free domain of its evolution.”

As can be seen Lipps assigns the determining factor which classifies wit as part of the comic, to the activity or to the active behavior of the subject, whereas K. Fischer characterizes wit by its relation to its object, in which characterization he accentuates the hidden hideous element in the realm of thought. One cannot put to test the cogency of these definitions of wit; one can, in fact, hardly understand them unless one studies the text from which they were taken. One is thus forced to work his way through the author’s descriptions of the comic in order to learn anything about wit. From other passages, however, one discovers that the same authors attribute to wit essential characteristics of general validity in which they disregard its relation to the comic.

K. Fischer’s characterization of wit which seems to be most satisfactory to this author runs as follows: “Wit is a playful judgment” (p. 51). For an elucidation of this expression we are referred to the analogy: “How æsthetic freedom consists in the playful contemplation of objects” (p. 50). In another place (p. 20) the æsthetic attitude towards an object is characterized by the condition that we expect nothing from this object—especially no gratification of our serious needs—but that we content ourselves with the pleasure of contemplating the same. In contrast to labor the æsthetic attitude is playful. “It may be that from æsthetic freedom there also results a kind of judgment, freed from the conventional restrictions and rule of conduct, which, in view of its genesis, I will call the playful judgment. This conception contains the first condition and possibly the entire formula for the solution of our problem. ‘Freedom begets wit and wit begets freedom,’ says Jean Paul. Wit is nothing but a free play of ideas” (p. 24).

Since time immemorial a favorite definition of wit has been the ability to discover similarities in dissimilarities, i.e., to find hidden similarities. Jean Paul has jocosely expressed this idea by saying that “wit is the disguised priest who unites every couple.” Th. Vischer adds the postscript: “He likes best to unite those couples whose marriage the relatives refuse to sanction.” Vischer refutes this, however, by remarking that in some witticisms there is no question of comparison or the discovery of similarities. Hence with very little deviation from Jean Paul’s definition he defines wit as the skill to combine with surprising quickness many ideas, which through inner content and connections are foreign to one another. K. Fischer then calls attention to the fact that in a large number of these witty judgments one does not find similarities, but contrasts; and Lipps further remarks that these definitions refer to the wit that the humorist possesses and not to the wit that he produces.

Other viewpoints, in some measure connected with one another, which have been mentioned in defining and describing wit are: “the contrast of ideas,” “sense in nonsense,” and “confusion and clearness.”

Definitions like those of Kraepelin lay stress upon the contrast of ideas. Wit is “the voluntary combination or linking of two ideas which in some way are contrasted with each other, usually through the medium of speech association.” For a critic like Lipps it would not be difficult to reveal the utter inadequacy of this formula, but he himself does not exclude the element of contrast—he merely assigns it elsewhere. “The contrast remains, but is not formed in a manner to show the ideas connected with the words, rather it shows the contrast or contradiction in the meaning and lack of meaning of the words” (p. 87). Examples show the better understanding of the latter. “A contrast arises first through the fact that we adjudge a meaning to its words which after all we cannot ascribe to them.”

In the further development of this last condition the antithesis of “sense in nonsense” becomes obvious. “What we accept one moment as senseful we later perceive as perfect nonsense. Thereby arises, in this case, the operation of the comic element” (p. 85). “A saying appears witty when we ascribe to it a meaning through psychological necessity and, while so doing, retract it. It may thus have many meanings. We lend a meaning to an expression knowing that logically it does not belong to it. We find in it a truth, however, which later we fail to find because it is foreign to our laws of experience or usual modes of thinking. We endow it with a logical or practical inference which transcends its true content, only to contradict this inference as soon as we finally grasp the nature of the expression itself. The psychological process evoked in us by the witty expression which gives rise to the sense of the comic depends in every case on the immediate transition from the borrowed feeling of truth and conviction to the impression or consciousness of relative nullity.”

As impressive as this exposition sounds one cannot refrain from questioning whether the contrast between the senseful and senseless upon which the comic depends does not also contribute to the definition of wit in so far as it is distinguished from the comic. Also the factor of “confusion and clearness” leads one deeply into the problem of the relation of wit to the comic. Kant, speaking of the comic element in general, states that one of its remarkable attributes is the fact that it can delude us for a moment only. Heymans (Zeitschr. f. Psychologie, XI, 1896) explains how the mechanism of wit is produced through the succession of confusion and clearness. He illustrates his meaning by an excellent witticism from Heine, who causes one of his figures, the poor lottery agent, Hirsch-Hyacinth, to boast that the great Baron Rothschild treated him as an equal or quite FAMILLIONAIRE. Here the word which acts as the carrier of the witticism appears in the first place simply as a faulty word-formation, as something incomprehensible, inconceivable, and enigmatic. It is for these reasons that it is confusing. The comic element results from the solution of the enigma and from the understanding of the word. Lipps adds that the first stage of enlightenment, showing that the confusing word means this or that, is followed by a second stage in which one perceives that this nonsensical word has first deluded us and then given us the true meaning. Only this second enlightenment, the realization that it is all due to a word that is meaningless in ordinary usage—this reduction to nothingness produces the comic effect (p. 95).

Whether or not either the one or the other of these two conceptions may seem more clear we are brought nearer to a definite insight through the discussion of the processes of confusion and enlightenment. If the comic effect of Heine’s famillionaire depends upon the solution of the seemingly senseless word, then the wit would have to be attributed to the formation of this word and to the character of the word so formed.

In addition to the associations of the viewpoints just discussed there is another characteristic of wit which is recognized as peculiar to it by all authors. “Brevity alone is the body and soul of wit,” declares Jean Paul (Vorschule der Aesthetik, I, 45), and modifies it with a speech of the old tongue-wagger, Polonius, from Shakespeare’s Hamlet (Act II, Scene 2):

Lipps’s description (p. 90) of the brevity of wit is also significant. He states that wit says what it does say, not always in few, but always in too few words; that is: “It expresses itself in words that will not stand the test of strict logic or of the ordinary mode of thought and expression. In fine it can express itself by leaving the thing unsaid.”

That “wit must unearth something hidden and concealed”—to quote K. Fischer (p. 51)—we have already been taught from the grouping of wit with caricature. I re-emphasize this determinant because it also has more to do with the nature of wit than with its relation to the comic.

I am well aware that the foregoing scanty quotations from the works of the authors on wit cannot do justice to the excellence of these works. In view of the difficulties that confront one in reproducing clearly such complicated and such delicately shaded streams of thought I cannot spare inquiring minds the trouble of searching for the desired information in the original sources. However, I do not know whether they will return fully satisfied. For the criteria and attributes of wit mentioned by these authors, such as—activity, the relation of the content of wit to our thoughts, the character of the playful judgment, the union of dissimilarities, contrasting ideas, “sense in nonsense,” the succession of confusion and clearness, the sudden emergence of the hidden, and the peculiar brevity of wit, seem to us, at first glance, so very pertinent and so easily demonstrable by examples that we cannot succumb to the danger of underestimating the value of such ideas. But they are only disjointed fragments which we should like to see welded into an organic whole. In the end they contribute no more to the knowledge of wit than a number of anecdotes teach us of the true characteristics of a personality whose biography interests us. We do not at all understand the connection that is supposed to exist between the individual conditions; for instance, what the brevity of wit may have to do with that side of wit exhibited in the playful judgment; besides we do not know whether wit must satisfy all or only some of these conditions in order to form real wit; which of them may be replaced and which ones are indispensable. We should also like a grouping and classification of wit in respect to its essential attributes. The classification as given by the authors is based, on the one hand, on the technical means, and on the other hand, on the utilization of wit in speech (sound-wit, play on words, the wit of caricature, characterization wit, and witty repartee).

Accordingly we should not find ourselves in a dilemma when it comes to pointing out goals for a further effort to explain wit. In order to look forward to success we must either introduce new viewpoints into the work, or try to penetrate further by concentrating our attention or by broadening the scope of our interest. We can prescribe for ourselves the task of at least not permitting any lack along the latter lines. To be sure, it is rather remarkable how few examples of recognized witticisms suffice the authors for their investigations and how each one accepts the ones used by his predecessors. We need not shirk the responsibility of analyzing the same examples which have already served the classical authors, but we contemplate new material besides to lay a broader foundation for our deductions. It is quite natural that we should select such examples of wit as objects for our investigation as have produced the deepest impression upon our own lives and which have caused us the greatest amount of laughter.

Some may inquire whether the subject of wit is worthy of such effort. In my opinion there is no doubt about it, for even if I disregard the personal motives to be revealed during the development of this theme (the motives which drove me to gain an insight into the problem of wit), I can refer to the fact that there is an intimate connection between all psychic occurrences; a connection which promises to furnish a psychological insight into a sphere which, although remote, will nevertheless be of considerable value to the other spheres. One may also be reminded what a peculiar, overwhelmingly fascinating charm wit offers in our society. A new joke operates almost as an event of universal interest. It is passed on from one person to another just like the news of the latest conquest. Even prominent men who consider it worth while relating how they attained fame, what cities and countries they have seen, and with what celebrated persons they have consorted, do not disdain to dwell in their autobiographies upon this and that excellent joke which they have heard.^[13]

We follow the beckoning of chance and take up as our first example of wit one which has already come to our notice in the previous chapter.

In that part of the Reisebilder entitled “Die Bäder von Lucca,” Heine introduces the precious character, Hirsch-Hyacinth, the Hamburg lottery agent and curer of corns, who, boasting to the poet of his relationship with the rich Baron Rothschild, ends thus: “And as true as I pray that the Lord may grant me all good things I sat next to Solomon Rothschild, who treated me just as if I were his equal, quite famillionaire.”

It is by means of this excellent and very funny example that Heymans and Lipps have illustrated the origin of the comic effect of wit from the succession of “confusion and clearness.” However, we shall pass over this question and put to ourselves the following inquiry: What is it that causes the speech of Hirsch-Hyacinth to become witty? It can be only one of two things; either it is the thought expressed in the sentence which carries in itself the character of the witticism; or the witticism adheres to the mode of expression which clothes the thought. On whichever side the nature of the wit may lie, there we shall follow it farther and endeavor to elucidate it.

In general a thought may be expressed in different forms of speech—that is, in different words—which may repeat it in its original accuracy. In the speech of Hirsch-Hyacinth we have before us a definite form of thought expressed which seems to us especially peculiar and not very readily comprehensible. Let us attempt to express as exactly as is possible the same thought in other words. Lipps, indeed, has already done this and has thus, to some degree, elucidated the meaning of the poet. He says (p. 87), “We understand that Heine wishes to say that the reception was on a familiar basis, that is, that it was of the friendly sort.” We change nothing in the sense when we assume a different interpretation which perhaps fits better into the speech of Hirsch-Hyacinth: “Rothschild treated me quite as his equal, in a very familiar way; that is, as far as this can be done by a millionaire.” We would only add, “The condescension of a rich man always carries something embarrassing for the one experiencing it.”^[14]

Whether we shall remain content with this or with another equivalent formulation of the thought, we can see that the question which we have put to ourselves is already answered. The character of the wit in this example does not adhere to the thought. It is a correct and ingenious remark that Heine puts into the mouth of Hirsch-Hyacinth—a remark of indubitable bitterness, as is easily understood in the case of the poor man confronted with so much wealth; but we should not care to call it witty. Now if any one who cannot forget the poet’s meaning in the interpretation should insist that the thought in itself is also witty, we can refer him to the definite fact that the witty character is lost in the interpretation. It is true that Hirsch-Hyacinth’s speech made us laugh loudly, but though Lipps’s or our own accurate rendering may please us and cause us to reflect, yet it cannot make us laugh.

But if the witty character of our example does not belong to the thought, then it must be sought for in the form of expression in the wording. We have only to study the peculiarity of this mode of expression to realize what one may term word- or form-technique. Also we may discover the things that are intimately related to the very nature of wit, since the character as well as the effect of wit disappears when one set of expressions is changed for others. At all events we are in full accord with our authors when we put so much value upon the verbal form of the wit. Thus K. Fischer (p. 72) says: “It is, in the first place, the naked form which is responsible for the perception of wit, and one is reminded of a saying of Jean Paul’s which affirms and proves this nature of wit in the same expression. ‘Thus the mere position conquers, be it that of warriors or of sentences.’”

Formation of Mixed Words

Now wherein lies the “technique” of this wit? What has occurred to the thought, in our own conception, that it became changed into wit and caused us to laugh heartily? The comparison of our conception with the text of the poet teaches us that two processes took place. In the first place there occurred an important abbreviation. In order to express fully the thought contained in the witticism we had to append to the words “Rothschild treated me just as an equal, on a familiar basis,” an additional sentence which in its briefest form reads: i.e., so far as a millionaire can do this. Even then we feel the necessity of an additional explanatory sentence.^[15] The poet expresses it in terser terms as follows: “Rothschild treated me just like an equal, quite famillionaire.” The entire restriction, which the second sentence imposes on the first thus verifying the familiar treatment, has been lost in the jest. But it has not been so entirely lost as not to leave a substitute from which it can be reconstructed. A second change has also taken place. The word “familiar” in the witless expression of the thought has been transformed into “famillionaire” in the text of the wit, and there is no doubt that the witty character and ludicrous effect of the joke depends directly upon this word-formation. The newly formed word is identical in its first part with the word “familiar” of the first sentence, and its terminal syllables correspond to the word “millionaire” of the second sentence. In this manner it puts us in a position to conjecture the second sentence which was omitted in the text of the wit. It may be described as a composite of two constituents “familiar” and “millionaire,” and one is tempted to depict its origin from the two words graphically.

The process, then, which has carried the thought into the witticism can be represented in the following manner, which, although at first rather fantastic, nevertheless furnishes exactly the actual existing result: “Rothschild treated me quite familiarly, i.e., as well as a millionaire can do that sort of thing.”

Now imagine that a compressing force is acting upon these sentences and assume that for some reason or other the second sentence is of lesser resistance. It is accordingly forced toward the vanishing point, but its important component, the word “millionaire,” which strives against the compressing power, is pushed, as it were, into the first sentence and becomes fused with the very similar element, the word “familiar” of this sentence. It is just this possibility, provided by chance to save the essential part of the second sentence, which favors the disappearance of the other less important components. The jest then takes shape in this manner: “Rothschild treated me in a very

Apart from such a compressing force, which is really unknown to us, we may describe the origin of the wit-formation, that is, the technique of the wit in this case, as a condensation with substitutive formation. In our example the substitutive formation consists in the formation of a mixed word. This fused word “famillionaire,” incomprehensible in itself but instantly understood in its context and recognized as senseful, is now the carrier of the mirth-provoking stimulus of the jest, whose mechanism, to be sure, is in no way clearer to us through the discovery of the technique. To what extent can a linguistic process of condensation with substitutive formation produce pleasure through a fused word and force us to laugh? We make note of the fact that this is a different problem, the treatment of which we can postpone until we shall find access to it later. For the present we shall continue to busy ourselves with the technique of wit.

Our expectation that the technique of wit cannot be considered an indifferent factor in the examination of the nature of wit prompts us to inquire next whether there are other examples of wit formed like Heine’s “famillionaire.” Not many of these exist, but enough to constitute a small group which may be characterized as the blend-word formations or fusions. Heine himself has produced a second witticism from the word “millionaire” by copying himself, as it were, when he speaks of a “millionarr” (Ideen, Chap. XIV). This is a visible condensation of “millionaire” and “narr” (fool) and, like the first example, expresses a suppressed by-thought. Other examples of a similar nature are as follows.

During the war between Turkey and the Balkan States, in 1912, Punch depicted the part played by Rumania by representing the latter as a highwayman holding up the members of the Balkan alliance. The picture was entitled: Kleptorumania. Here the word is a fusion of Kleptomania and Rumania and may be represented as follows:

A naughty jest of Europe has rebaptized a former potentate, Leopold, into Cleopold because of his relation to a lady surnamed Cleo. This is a clear form of condensation which by the addition of a single letter forever vividly preserves a scandalous allusion.

In an excellent chapter on this same theme Brill gives the following example.^[16]

“De Quincey once remarked that old persons are apt to fall into ‘anecdotage.’” The word Anecdotage, though in itself incomprehensible, can be readily analyzed to show its original full sense; and on analysis we find that it is made up of two words, anecdote and dotage. That is, instead of saying that old persons are apt to fall into dotage and that old persons are fond of telling anecdotes, De Quincey fuses the two words into a neologism, anecdotage, and thus simultaneously expresses both ideas. The technique, therefore, lies in the fusion of the two words. Such a fusion of words is called condensation. Condensation is a substitutive formation, i.e., instead of anecdote and dotage we have anecdotage.

“In a short story which I have recently read, one of the characters, a ‘sport,’ speaks of the Christmas season as the alcoholidays. By reduction it can be easily seen that we have here a compound word, a combination of alcohol and holidays which can be graphically represented as follows:

“Here the condensation expresses the idea that holidays are conducive to alcoholic indulgence. In other words, we have here a fused word, which, though strange in appearance, can be easily understood in its proper context. The witticism may be described as a condensation with substitution.

“The same mechanism is found in the following: A dramatic critic, summarizing three paragraphs to the effect that most plays now produced in New York City are violently emotional and hysterical, remarks: ‘Thespis has taken up his home in Dramatteawan.’ The last word is a condensation of drama and Matteawan. The substitution not only expressed the critic’s idea that most of the plays at present produced in New York are violent, emotional and hysterical, that is insane, but it also contains a clever allusion to the nature of the problem presented by most of these plays. Matteawan is a state hospital for criminal insane. Most of the plays are not only insane, but also criminal since they treat of murders, divorces, robberies, scandals, etc.”

When Flaubert published his famous romance Salammbo, which treats of life in ancient Carthage, it was scoffingly referred to by Sainte-Beuve as Carthaginoiserie on account of its tedious detailed descriptions.

During a conversation with a lady I unintentionally furnished the material for a jest. I spoke to her about the great merits of an investigator whom I considered unjustly ignored. She remarked, “But the man really deserves a monument.” “Perhaps he will get one some day,” I answered, “but at the moment his success is very limited.” “Monument” and “moment” are contrasts. The lady then united these contrasts and said: “Well, let us wish him a monumentary success.”

If at this stage the reader should become displeased with a viewpoint which threatens to destroy his pleasure in wit without explaining the source of this pleasure I must beg him to be patient for a while, because we are now confronted with the technique of wit, the examination of which promises many revelations if only we enter into it far enough. Besides the analysis of the examples thus far cited, which show simply a process of condensation, there are others in which the changed expressions manifest themselves in other ways.

Condensation with Modification and Substitution

The following witticisms of Mr. N. will serve as illustrations.

“I was driving with him tête-à-bête.” Nothing is simpler than the reduction of this jest. Evidently it can only mean: I was driving tête-à-tête with Mr. X. and X. is a stupid ass (beast).

Neither of these two sentences is witty nor is there any wit if one combines them into this one: “I was out driving tête-à-tête with that stupid ass (beast).” The wit appears when the words “stupid ass” are omitted and when, as a substitute for them, the first “t” of the second “tête” is changed to “b.” This slight modification brings back to expression the suppressed “bête.” The technique of this group of witticisms may be described as “condensation with a slight modification.” And it would seem that the more insignificant the substitutive modification, the better is the wit.

Quite similar, although not without its complications, is the technique of another form of witticism. During a discussion about a person in whom there was something to praise and much to criticise, N. remarked: “Yes, vanity is one of his four heels of Achilles.”^[17] This modification consists in the fact that instead of the one vulnerable heel which was attributed to Achilles we have here four heels. Four heels means four feet and that number is only found on animals. The two thoughts condensed in the witticism are as follows: Except for his vanity he is an admirable fellow; still I do not care for him, for he is more of an animal than a human being.^[18]

A similar but simpler joke I heard statu nascendi in a family circle. One of two brothers who were attending college was an excellent scholar while the other was only an average student. It so happened that the model boy had a setback in school. The mother discussed this matter and expressed her fear lest this event be the beginning of a lasting deterioration. The boy who until then had been overshadowed by his brother willingly grasped this opportunity to remark: “Yes, Carl is going backward on all-fours.”

Here the modification consists in a small addition as an assurance that in his judgment his brother is going backward. This modification represents and takes the place of a passionate plea for his own cause which may be expressed as follows: After all, you must not think that he is so much cleverer than I am simply because he has more success in school. He is really a stupid ass, i.e., much more stupid than I am.

A good illustration of condensation with slight modification is furnished by a well-known witty jest of Mr. N., who remarked about a character in public life that he had a “great future behind him.” The butt of this joke was a young man whose ancestry, rearing, and personal qualities seemed to destine him for the leadership of a great party and the attainment of political power at its head. But times changed, the party became politically incompetent, and it could readily be foreseen that the man who was predestined to become its leader would come to nothing. The briefest reduction of the meaning by which one could replace this joke would be: The man has had a great future before him, but that is now past. Instead of “has had” and the appended afterthought there is a small change in the main sentence in which “before” is replaced by its opposite “behind.”^[19]

Mr. N. made use of almost the same modification in the case of the nobleman who was appointed minister of agriculture for no other reason than that he was interested in agriculture. Public opinion had an opportunity to find out that he was the most incompetent man who had ever been intrusted with this office. When, however, he had relinquished his portfolio and had withdrawn to his agricultural pursuits Mr. N. said of him: “Like Cincinnatus of Old he has returned to his place in front of the plough.”

That Roman, who was likewise called to his office from his farm, returned to his place behind the plough. In those days, just as in the present time, in front of the plough walked—the ox.

We could easily increase these examples by many others, but I am of the opinion that we are in need of no more cases in order to grasp thoroughly the character of the technique of this second group—condensation with modification. If we now compare the second group with the first, the technique of which consisted in condensation with a mixed word-formation, we readily see that the differences are not vital and that the lines of demarcation are indistinct. The mixed word-formation, like the modification, became subordinated to the idea of substitutive formation, and if we desire we can also describe the mixed word-formation as a modification of the parent word through the second elements.

We may make our first pause here and ask ourselves with what known factor in the literature of wit our first result, either in whole or in part, coincides. It obviously agrees with the factor of brevity which Jean Paul calls the soul of wit (supra, p. 11). But brevity alone is not wit or every laconism would be witty. The brevity of wit must be of a special kind. We recall that Lipps has attempted to describe more fully the peculiarity of the brevity of wit (v. s., p. 11). Here our investigation started and demonstrated that the brevity of wit is often the result of a special process which has left a second trace—the substitutive formation—in the wording of the wit. By applying the process of reduction, which aims to cause a retrogression in the peculiar process of condensation, we find also that wit depends only upon the verbal expression which was produced by the process of condensation. Naturally our entire interest now centers upon this peculiar and hitherto almost neglected mechanism. Furthermore, we cannot yet comprehend how it can give origin to all that is valuable in wit; namely, the resultant pleasure.

Condensation in Dreams

Have processes similar to those here described as the technique of wit already been noted in another sphere of our psychic life? To be sure, in one apparently remote sphere. In 1900 I published a book which, as indicated by its title (The Interpretation of Dreams^[20]), makes the attempt to explain the riddle of the dream and to trace the dream to normal psychic operations. I had occasion to contrast there the manifest and often peculiar dream-content with the latent but altogether real thoughts of the dream from which it originated, and I took up the investigation of the processes which make the dream from the latent dream-thought. I also investigated the psychological forces which participated in this transposition. The sum of the transforming processes I designated as the dream-work and, as a part of this dream-work, I described the process of condensation. This process has a striking similarity to the technique of wit and, like the latter, it leads to abbreviations and brings about substitutive formations of like character.

From recollections of his own dreams the reader will be familiar with the compositions of persons and objects that appear in them; indeed, the dream makes similar compositions of words which can then be reduced by analysis (e.g., Autodidasker—Autodidakt and Lasker^[21]). On other occasions and even much more frequently, the condensation work of the dream produces no compositions, but pictures which closely resemble an object or person up to a certain addition or variation which comes from another source, like the modifications in the witticisms of Mr. N. We cannot doubt that in this case, as in the other, we deal with a similar psychic process which is recognizable by identical results. Such a far-reaching analogy between wit-technique and dream-work will surely arouse our interest in the former and stimulate our expectation of finding some explanation of wit from a comparison with the dream. We forbear, however, to enter upon this work by bearing in mind that we have investigated the technique of wit in only a very small number of witty jests, so that we cannot be certain that the analogy, the workings of which we wish to explore, will hold good. Hence we turn away from the comparison with the dream and again take up the technique of wit, leaving, however, at this place of our investigation a visible thread, as it were, which later we shall take up again.

Wit Formed by Word-division

The next point we shall discuss is whether the process of condensation with substitutive formation is demonstrable in all witticisms so that it may be designated as a universal character of the technique of wit. I recall a joke which has clung to my mind through certain peculiar circumstances. One of the great teachers of my youth, whom we considered unable to appreciate a joke—he had never told us a single joke of his own—came into the Institute laughing. With an unwonted readiness he explained the cause of his good humor. “I have read an excellent joke,” he said. “A young man who claimed to be a relative of the great J. J. Rousseau, and who bore his name, was introduced into a Parisian drawing-room. It should be added that he was decidedly red-headed. He behaved in such an awkward manner that the hostess ventured this criticism to the gentleman who had introduced him—‘Vous m’avez fait connaître un jeune homme roux et sot, mais non pas un Rousseau.’”

At this point our teacher started to laugh again. According to the nomenclature of our authors this is sound-wit and a poor kind at that, since it plays with a proper name.

But what is the technique of this wit? It is quite clear that the character which we had perhaps hoped to demonstrate universally leaves us in the lurch in the first new example. Here there is no omission and scarcely an abbreviation. In the witticism the lady expresses almost everything that we can ascribe to the thoughts. “You have made me look forward to meeting a relative of J. J. Rousseau. I expected that he was perhaps even mentally related to him. Imagine my surprise to find this red-haired foolish boy, a roux et sot.” To be sure, I was able to add and insert something, but this attempt at reduction does not annul the wit. It remains fixed and attached to the sound similarity of Rousseau.
roux sot This proves that condensation with substitution plays no part in the production of this witticism.

With what else do we have to deal? New attempts at reduction taught me that the joke will persistently continue until the name Rousseau is replaced by another. If, e.g., I substitute the name Racine for it I find that although the lady’s criticism is just as feasible as before it immediately loses every trace of wit. Now I know where I can look for the technique of this joke although I still hesitate to formulate it. I shall make the following attempt: The technique of the witticism lies in the fact that one and the same word—the name—is used in a twofold application, once as a whole and once divided into its syllables like a charade.

I can mention a few examples of identical technique. A witticism of this sort was utilized by an Italian lady to avenge a tactless remark made to her by the first Napoleon. Pointing to her compatriots at a court ball he said: “Tutti gli Italian danzano si male” (all Italians dance so badly). To which she quickly replied: “Non tutti, ma buona parte” (Not all, but a great many)—Buona parte.^[22]
Buonaparte. Brill reports still another example in which the wit depends on the twofold application of a name: “Hood once remarked that he had to be a lively Hood for a livelihood.”^[23]

At one time when Antigone was produced in Berlin a critic found that the presentation entirely lacked the character of antiquity. The wits of Berlin incorporated this criticism in the following manner: “Antique? Oh, nay” (Th. Vischer and K. Fischer).

Manifold Application of the Same Material

In these examples, which will suffice for this species of wit, the technique is the same. A name is made use of twice; first, as a whole, and then divided into its syllables—and in their divided state the syllables yield a different meaning.^[24] The manifold application of the same word, once as a whole and then as the component syllables into which it divides itself, was the first case that came to our attention in which technique deviated from that of condensation. Upon brief reflection, however, we must divine from the abundance of examples that come to us that the newly discovered technique can hardly be limited to this single means. Obviously there are any number of hitherto unobserved possibilities for one to utilize the same word or the same material of words in manifold application in one sentence. May not all these possibilities furnish technical means for wit? It would seem so, judging by the following examples.

“Two witty statesmen, X and Y, met at a dinner. X, acting as toastmaster, introduced Y as follows: ‘My friend, Y, is a very wonderful man. All you have to do is to open his mouth, put in a dinner, and a speech appears, etc.’ Responding to the speaker, Y said: ‘My friend, the toastmaster, told you what a wonderful man I am, that all you have to do is to open my mouth, put in a dinner, and a speech appears. Now let me tell you what a wonderful man he is. All you have to do is open anybody’s mouth, put in his speech, and the dinner appears.’”^[25]

In examples of this sort, one can use the same material of words and simply change slightly their order. The slighter the change, the more one gets the impression that different sense was expressed with the same words, the better is the technical means of wit. And how simple are the means of its production! “Put in a dinner and a speech appears—put in a speech and a dinner appears.” This is really nothing but an exchange of places of these two phrases whereby what was said of Y becomes differentiated from what is said of X. To be sure, this is not the whole technique of the joke.^[26]

Great latitude is afforded the technique of wit if one so extends the “manifold application of the same material” that the word—or the words—upon which the wit depends may be used first unchanged and then with a slight modification. An example is another joke of Mr. N. He heard a gentleman, who himself was born a Jew, utter a malicious statement about Jewish character. “Mr. Councilor,” said he, “I am familiar with your antesemitism, but your antisemitism is new to me.”

Here only one single letter is changed, the modification of which could hardly be noticed in careless pronunciation. This example reminds one of the other modification jokes of Mr. N., but it differs from them in lacking the condensation. Everything that was to be said has been told in the joke. “I know that you yourself were formerly a Jew, therefore I am surprised that you should rail against the Jew.”

An excellent example of such wit modification is also the familiar exclamation: “Traduttore—Traditore.”^[27]

The similarity between the two words, almost approaching identity, results in a very impressive representation of the inevitability by which a translator becomes a transgressor—in the eyes of the author.

The manifoldness of slight modifications possible in these jokes is so great that none is quite similar to the other. Here is a joke which is supposed to have arisen at an examination for the degree of law. The candidate was translating a passage from the Corpus juris, “Labeo ait.” “‘I fall (fail),’ says he,” volunteered the candidate. “‘You fall (fail),’ says I,” replied the examiner and the examination ended. Whoever mistakes the name of the celebrated Jurist for a word to which he attaches a false meaning certainly deserves nothing better. But the technique of the witticism lies in the fact that the examiner used almost the same words in punishing the applicant which the latter used to prove his ignorance. Besides, the joke is an example of repartee whose technique, as we shall see, is closely allied to the one just mentioned.

Words are plastic and may be moulded into almost any shape. There are some words which have lost their true original meaning in certain usages which they still enjoy in other applications. In one of Lichtenberg’s jokes just those conditions have been sought for in which the nuances of the wordings have removed their basic meaning.

“How goes it?” asked the blind of the lame one. “As you see,” replied the lame one to the blind.

Language is replete with words which taken in one sense are full of meaning and in another are colorless. There may be two different derivatives from the same root, one of which may develop into a word with a full meaning while the other may become a colorless suffix or prefix, and yet both may have the same sound. The similarity of sound between a word having full meaning and one whose meaning is colorless may also be accidental. In both cases the technique of wit can make use of such relationship of the speech material. The following examples illustrate some of these points.

“Do you call a man kind who remits nothing to his family while away?” asked an actor. “Call that kindness?” “Yes, unremitting kindness,” was the reply of Douglas Jerrold. The wit here depends on the first syllable un of the word unremitting. Un is usually a prefix denoting “not,” but by adding it to “remitting” a new relationship is unexpectedly established which changes the meaning of the context. “An undertaker is one who always carries out what he undertakes.” The striking character upon which the wit here depends is the manifold application of the words undertaker and carry out. Undertaker commonly denotes one who manages funerals. Only when taken in this sense and using the words carry out literally is the sentence witty. The wit lies in the manifold application of the same words.

Double Meaning and Play on Words

If we delve more deeply into the variety of “manifold application” of the same word we suddenly notice that we are confronted with forms of “double meaning” or “plays on words” which have been known a long time and which are universally acknowledged as belonging to the technique of wit. Then why have we bothered our brains about discovering something new when we could just as well have gleaned it from the most superficial treatise on wit? We can say in self-defense only that we are presenting another side of the same phenomena of verbal expressions. What the authors call the “playful” character of wit we treat from the point of view of “manifold application.”

Further examples of manifold application which may also be designated under a new and third group, the class of double meaning, may be divided into subdivisions. These, to be sure, are not essentially differentiated from one another any more than the whole third group from the second. In the first place we have:

(a) Cases of double meaning of a name and its verbal significance: e.g., “Discharge thyself of our company, Pistol” (Henry IV, Act II). “For Suffolk’s duke may he suffocate” (Henry IV, Act I). Heine says, “Here in Hamburg rules not the rascally Macbeth, but Banko (Banquo).”

In those cases where the unchanged name cannot be used,—one might say “misused,”—one can get a double meaning by means of familiar slight modifications: “Why have the French rejected Lohengrin?” was a question asked some time ago. The answer was, “On Elsa’s (Alsace) account.”

(b) Cases where a double meaning is obtained by using a word which has both a verbal and metaphoric sense furnish an abundant source for the technique of wit. A medical colleague, who was well known for his wit, once said to Arthur Schnitzler, the writer: “I am not at all surprised that you became a great poet. Your father had already held up the mirror to his contemporaries.” The mirror used by the father of the writer, the famous Dr. Schnitzler, was the laryngoscope. According to the well-known quotation from Hamlet (Act III, Scene 2), the object of the play as well as the writer who creates it is to “hold, as’t were, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.”

(c) Cases of actual double meaning or play on words—the ideal case, as it were, of manifold application. Here no violence is done to the word. It is not torn into syllables. It need not undergo any modifications. It need not exchange its own particular sphere, say as a proper name, for another. Thanks to certain circumstances it can express two meanings just as it stands in the structure of the sentence. Many examples are at our disposal.

One of the first royal acts of the last Napoleon was, as is well known, the confiscation of the estates belonging to the House of Orleans. “C’est le premier vol de l’aigle” was an excellent play on words current at that time. “Vol” means both flight and theft. Louis XV wished to test the wit of one of his courtiers whose talent in that direction he had heard about. He seized his first opportunity to command the cavalier to concoct a joke at his (the king’s) expense. He wanted to be the “subject” of the witticism. The courtier answered him with the clever bonmot, “Le roi n’est pas sujet.” “Subject” also means “vassal.” (Taken from K. Fischer.)

A physician, leaving the sick-bed of a wife, whose husband accompanied him, exclaimed doubtfully: “I do not like her looks.” “I have not liked her looks for a long time,” was the quick rejoinder of the husband. The physician, of course, referred to the condition of the wife, but he expressed his apprehension about the patient in such words as to afford the husband the means of utilizing them to assert his conjugal aversion. Concerning a satirical comedy Heine remarked: “This satire would not have been so biting had the author of it had more to bite.” This jest is a better example of metaphoric and common double meaning than of real play upon words, but at present we are not concerned about such strict lines of demarcation. Charles Matthews, the elder, one of England’s greatest actors, was asked what he was going to do with his son (the young man was destined for architecture). “Why,” answered the comedian, “he is going to draw houses like his father.” Foote once asked a man why he forever sang one tune. “Because it haunts me,” replied the man. “No wonder,” said Foote, “you are continually murdering it.” Said the Dyspeptic Philosopher: “One swallow doesn’t make a summer, nor quench the thirst.”

A gentleman had shown much ingenuity in evading a notorious borrower whom he had sent away many times with the request to call when he was “in.” One day, however, the borrower eluded the servant at the door and cornered his victim.

“Ah,” said the host, seeing there was no way out of it, “at last I am in.”

“No,” returned the borrower in anticipation, “at last I am in and you are out.”

Heine said in the Harzreise: “I cannot recall at the moment the names of all the students, and among the professors there are some who have no name as yet.”

Dr. Johnson said of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, which was poor in purse, but prolific in the distribution of its degrees: “Let it persevere in its present plan and it may become rich by degrees.” Here the wit depends more on the manifold application than on the play on words.

The keen-witted writer, Horatio Winslow, sums up the only too-familiar history of some American families as follows:

A Tale of Two American Generations