On the issue of humor, I got emails from several
people. The most detailed response came from Gary
Sullivan , who advocates a temporal theory
of wit:
Hi Ron,
I’m typing this
in Word, hoping I’ve got the settings correct so you won’t get question marks
where apostrophes or ellipses are intended (a problem that I think I just fixed, but ... we’ll see
... if not, my apologies).
Your blog today
touched on two of my favorite topics: humor and context.
Before I start
in on all of that, though, I should say that “But I’ve always thought as well
that Pound believed Mauberly
to be a barrel of chortles” made me laugh out loud. (It was “barrel of
chortles” that did it, for what it’s worth – in other words, the linguistic
construction, which I’ll get to in a bit.)
The thrust of
your argument seems based more on ideas about irony, specifically, and less so
than on humor, or there seemed to be some conflation of the two as I was
reading it.
I think you’re
right about that Arensberg poem, it’s not really interesting. But, is it the
lack of context that makes it so? Obviously, some context would help. But I’d
argue that it would still be a lame poem (for me, anyway) if I knew who Hasekawa was. Also, the “humor” there seems more about
something universal than Hasekawa (who may,
ultimately, have been a made-up name, referring to no one in particular). The
problem though isn’t – to me – that it’s simply humor, but a failed attempt at
humor:
Perhaps it is
no matter that you died.
Life’s an incognito which you saw through:
You never told
on life – you had your pride;
But life has
told on you.
There’s
something metaphysical about the humor there, this idea that “life” is an
“incognito.” But the ideas are so fuzzily presented, we don’t know what that
really means – it’s too abstract. We (or I anyway) don’t know what he means by
“Life’s an incognito” ... maybe he’s getting at something about the
“life-force,” that it isn’t “personal” or that it’s invisible? Or “You never
told on life.” What could that possibly mean? “Life has told on you,” probably
means that Hasekawa, whoever he was, died anyway, as
we all will. I mean, it’s impossible to tell. My sense is that we probably
wouldn’t know even knowing who Hasekawa was ...
unless Hasekawa had made some statement about life
and incognito – in other words, unless this is Hasekawa’s
language being used against him. In which case, touché, you’re right. I don’t
know for sure, of course, but I doubt that that’s the case here. It seems like
this is Arensberg’s language here. In which case, the
problem is probably not lack of context, but poor structure.
I really
believe humor requires more than just making manifest enough context for it to
be understood, and that comes from laughing out loud when I was a lot younger
at Woody Allen or Don ald
Barthelme or Firesign Theater pieces where I had no
idea what they were “talking about.” (Months or years later, I’d figure it out,
and it was as often as not less, not more, funny –
although there was that feeling, yes, like, “aha! that’s
what you meant!” In other words, “aha!” and not “ha ha
ha,” which happened earlier, bereft of context.) It
wouldn’t matter, in other words, if I knew who Pound was or, if I did know of
Pound, what Mauberly
was, but that, “barrel of chortles” is a completely hilarious construction.)
Humor depends largely – not
exclusively, but I’d argue predominantly – on timing, if verbal, or measure, if
written. Why, in other words, has the Greek
Anthology persisted – and not simply as a kind of historical item read in
college, but as something even contemporary poets as well as humorists might
pilfer from, retranslate, read for pleasure, or otherwise use. Epigrams give
less opportunity for context about what is said than they do for the mechanics
of what is said.
But, again, it
seems like your primary argument is not about whether or not humor will last, but whether or not irony is read as irony over the years.
Some English students may remember reading Swift’s Modest Proposal and “not being sure” at first if he’s “kidding.” But not me. Because, although there is no real context
presently for that piece in the piece,
it always arrives framed – in an English textbook anthology with an
introductory essay, maybe, or however else one might conceivably receive it (in
a Penguin edition, with footnotes explaining?) Same with Petronius’s
Satyricon.
Context can get carried over by others, by previous readers. Swift is, in other
words, probably less shocking today,
because we often get it with a set-up. Someday, your Stein quote will be recontextualized by a scholar somewhere, and that might be,
for the next hundred or so years, that. Anyway, back to Swift, because as an
example he’s “as obvious as an ear” – part of his plan, so it seemed, was that
one would not know he was being
ironic. That readers of the day would internalize the
argument, to some extent, and then come out of that experience, understanding
some level of concomitant participation in the genocide of the Irish. But,
irony of ironies, he’s now read with the
foreknowledge that he was being ironic. And the effect of reading him is,
ironically, diminished.
That,
btw, is the kind of irony I’m often most interested
in. And it does have a very limited, immediate value. We’ll never read Swift –
no one will – as he was then. But I think he’ll be remembered, and learned
from, mimicked, used, referred to, and enjoyed, for a long time, despite that.
As you say,
“Humor is always – & only – in the eye of the beholder.” I agree with that.
But I also believe that meaning/intention and value are also always – and only
– in the eye of the beholder. It’s all
problematic or changeable or contingent upon context, I’d argue.
How is Celan’s
work read by those who don’t know who he was, his history?
Enjoying the
blog,
