Introduction
Henri Bergson was a French philosopher whose ideas were rather influential in the beginning of the 20th century. In his works, Bergson touched on the issues of creativity and intuition, developed the theory of Duration. It is possible to sum up that what interested the philosopher most of all were two things: the first one was finding the core of different matters, and the second thing was to learn the Moment, to catch it, like a photo camera does, and to represent it to a reader. In his Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic (2008), Bergson incarnates both of his passions and disassembles the mechanism of how laugher comes into being.
Laugher is the universal language of communication which is able to unite people from different corners of the World; not surprisingly, besides stunning success in France, Bergson’s work has been appreciated and admired in many countries of the World, which demonstrates that laugher has no borders in the dimension of space. However, this bears an instant question: is this statement true for the dimension of time as well? To approach to the answer, it will be interesting to study the validity of Bergson’s statements in respect of a literary work separated from today by almost two thousand five hundred years.
Main body
Aristophanes’s The Frogs (Aristophanes) is a comedy performed in Ancient Greece in 405 BC and was met with the audience’s delight. Aristophanes, a famous playwright of those times, touched on the issues which were considered burning by the contemporary society, embracing the political environment and the processes taking place in contemporary literature.
Here the first link between two works can be noticed: Bergson claims that despite comedy seems quite distant from the real life, it is nevertheless even closer to it than drama, and explains that “in laugher we always find and unavowed intention to humiliate, and consequently to correct our neighbour, if not in his will, at least in his deed” (Bergson 66); no doubt, from this point of view, the work of Aristophanes is an appropriate illustration for Bergson’s statement.
In the chapter devoted to the comic in characters, Bergson tries to outline a formula for an ideal comic protagonist, listing the necessary features: first of all, he should be “deep-rooted”, but at the same time “superficial”, which makes the audience laugh at the character, but at the same sympathize with him (2008, 81). From the beginning of the play, Dionysus is performed as a protagonist we laugh at, not we laugh with.
This character is quite vainglorious, but he falls into comic situations all the time and turns out to be a coward; sometimes even his slave Xanthias proves to be more quick-witted than him. However, according to the plot, Dionysus nevertheless stays very persistent and moves ahead towards his aim: thus, ironical tint does not exceed the appropriate level, and Dionysus still has the audience’s sympathy, not becoming a laughing stock completely.
Another characteristic is being inseparable from social life, which promises funny situations of a character with his society; Dionysus shows his concerns about Greek literature which loses its geniuses, and this forms the whole plot of the play, leading the protagonist towards his adventures and makes for an episode of the “battle” between two outstanding authors, Euripides and Aeschylus. A protagonist should be “tacked on to all the vices and even to a good many virtues”. It is possible to say that Dionysus shows both negative and positive traits of him during the play.
As well, Bergson talks about comic effect arising when a character takes some insignificant thing seriously (2008, 87); The Frogs provides an example of using this technique: Dionysus competes to the frogs in the river in singing “Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax” and gradually becomes more and more enthusiastic about winning an imaginary battle saying, “I’ll my song shout, if need be, all day long, Until I’ve learned to master your ko-ax” (Aristophanes 19).
This looks similar to Don Quixote’s devotion to his ideas, which is considered in (Bergson 2008). Thus, in the comedy, Dionysus does not display his functions and abilities of a divine from an ancient myth: in fact, the only episode when he reminds of his divine essence is when he faces a threat of being flogged, “I am a god. You’ll blame yourself hereafter if you touch ME” (Aristophanes 36). However, he has definite functions of a comic protagonist outlined by theory of comedy and, particularly, Bergson’s point of view.
Besides the traits of a protagonist, Bergson describes the techniques of performing characters’ behavior and situations they participate in. He talks about repetition as a means of provoking laugh: it can be an action or a word which repeats several times, while other conditions change (Bergson 47). We can see a kind of repetition in The Frogs: the chorus of frogs attracts Dionysus’s attention with their “Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax” (Aristophanes 18), and each time the protagonist hears this sound, he reacts to it with a new outburst of emotion, which is aimed at making a viewer laugh. As well, in his work, the French philosopher pays attention to the matter of absurd in comic.
He says that not all the absurdity is funny: it requires a certain condition which makes it comic; moreover, absurdity and logic are often fused: an absurd idea is put into the basis of the situation, and its following development seems comic, even if it is build according to the laws of logic (Bergson 90). He alludes to Mark Twain’s interview where the absurdity is based on the fact that the writer “asserts he is one of these twins, whilst all the time he talks as though he were a third person who tells the tale” (Bergson 91). In The Frogs, we also face a case of comic built on the basis of absurdity: Dionysus meets a corpse when he tries to reach the Underworld.
This episode is a fusion of logic and absurd: on the one hand, it is not unexpected to meet a dead man not far from Hades; nevertheless, a talking corpse remains an eccentric image for a viewer and can provoke laugh. Moreover, this dead man finds himself quite lively: he starts bargaining with Dionysus about the cost of a service he was asked, which looks very funny. Finally, not wishing to abate in bargaining, a “practical” corpse says, “I’d liefer live again!” (Aristophanes 14), and the comic effect is explained by the fact that for any living human staying alive is, to put it mildly, much more preferable than the opposite.
Thus, Bergson has provided a substantial theoretical background for understanding the nature of laugher. He has touched on the comic in characters, their words, gestures and movements, as well as the situations they face, and has provided the examples from well-known literary works of different epochs; therefore, it seems that his formula has embraced all the times. However, is it possible to state that there is no place to the signs of time in humor? The outstanding image of the play which has given it the name, the chorus of the frogs in the river singing their “Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax”, can be hardly classified precisely according to Bergson’s theory: we can try to refer it to absurdity, or to comic in words and gestures, though not seeing complete coincidence.
Actually, this image can hardly make a modern viewer rock with laugher: today’s television provides us even more preposterous characters; however, it is necessary to use imagination and try to assume how unusually and bravely it was to perform the frogs’ chorus onstage in Ancient Greece. In Ancient Greek drama, the role of chorus exceeded just the musical accompaniment of the action, being an important element of a play’s composition. Performing chorus as a “team” of frogs might be a real breakthrough for that time.
Another Aristophanes’s tool of provoking the audience’s laugh is removing the tint of stateliness and pompousness from the images of the comedy’s characters. It is necessary to mark that for a modern reader or viewer, it is difficult to understand how strongly this technique could impact on the Ancient Greek audience; however, we can try to imagine it: the myths of Ancient Greece have very pathetic tinge, their characters are reputable, imposing, and powerful, which contrasts to the way Aristophanes performs them in his work. Ancient Greek gods, heroes, poets are shown as “earthly” people, with their trifling concerns and quarrels; their manners and cues seem very extrinsic to them.
Heracles was hardly a character to be laughed at in Ancient Greece, nor was Dionysus; in the myths, their images are pompous and have no ironic tint; however, we see them in The Frogs joking, affording informal style of speech and vernacular expressions, such as “get down, you rascal” (Aristophane 6) or “hang you” (17). The image of Aeacus has been also distorted by the author: in the Greek myth, he was a stately judge of people’s sins; in the comedy, he is performed as the clamorous doorkeeper of the Underworld.
Finally, it is possible to say the same about the images of the poets, Euripides and Aeschylus. Their contest looks rather ridiculous considering the scale of talent which these poets possessed and the depth of the ideas they expressed in their works. Two writers start a literary “skirmish”, fighting by means of the phrases from their plays; the critical exclamations which they address to each other also seem very superficial and pert. It is possible to imagine how funny it looked for the Ancient Greek viewers who knew Euripides’s and Aeschylus’s magnificent, deep and impressive literary works and admired them.
Conclusion
Thus, it is quite plausible that the regularities of laugher provided by Bergson in his book are universal in time dimension: he alludes to the centuries-old works of literature and finds common techniques used in them. However, it is necessary to mark the following: these regularities work when a reader (viewer, listener) is knowledgeable enough about the epoch performed in the work: it is difficult to imagine a modern person not aware about Ancient Greek culture and mythology laughing at Aristophanes’s The Frogs, and this seems to be correct considering any other epoch.
In other words, Bergson describes the mechanisms of creating curious situations in a literary work, but in order to laugh, a reader needs to understand what a funny thing consist in. This reminds about the importance of studying history, mythology and art: being aware of social, political, and cultural processes of different epochs, a reader extends his borders and is able to enjoy the works of art which belong to different periods and save their imprint, as well as makes Bergson’s laws of laugher work.
Bibliography
Aristophanes. The Frogs. Forgotten Books. n.d. Web.
Bergson, Henri. Laughter – An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic. Trans. Cloudesely Brereton. USA; UK: Arc Manor LLC, 2008. Print.