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 As a young man I was exposed a lot to the writings of George Meredith and studied his essay "On the Idea of Comedy and the Uses of the Comic Spirit" (1877.) The work is a celebration of the civilising power of the comic spirit. The mind, he affirms, directs the laughter of comedy, and civilisation is founded on common sense, which equips one to hear the comic spirit when it laughs folly out of countenance and to participate in its fellowship. Which aptly sums up some of the most enjoyable reactive experiences I have had to postings from some of our loveable, more physically inclined contributors to Intellect. (:> I've always been a great a advocate of 'piss-taking' as a socially corrective force and for harnessing the scope of laughter and its derisive power to the destruction of pomposity, fatuousness and plain wrong-headedness. Ann's fellow countryman Molière, in whose work the farcical element is strong, has long been one of my heroes. I find it interesting that as some of Shakespeare's greatest comedies prove; there are plays, such as Shakespeare's last ones, which are well within an established tradition of comedy and would have been uproariously funny to the groundlings in the Globe Theatre, but hardly raise a giggle in a modern performance, because our modern ideas of humour have changed so much from Elizabethan times. When I write satire, such as 'The Man Who Lived in a Tree,' I try to write it in a way that will appeal to everyone, but I have noticed a significant difference between the English appreciation of humour and the American. I think US humour has been greatly affected by Jewish humouristic styles (which I love!) and a great mixture of various ethnic comedic influences. British humour has perhaps remained more insular and in consequence developed more subtlety? And yet when I think of people like Will Rogers, Thurber, Tom Lehrer and many other American 'dealers in laughter' they take a lot of beating as far as subtlety IS concerned. Mind you - who could beat the great Edna Everidge? One of the comic geniuses of our time. Biographical note on my boyhood favourite: George Meredith. (b. Feb. 12, 1828, Portsmouth, Hampshire, Eng.--d. May 18, 1909, Box Hill, Surrey), English Victorian poet and novelist, whose novels are noted for their wit, brilliant dialogue, and aphoristic quality of language. His novels are also distinguished by psychological studies of character and a highly subjective view of life that, far ahead of his time, regarded women as truly the equals of men. His best known works are The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859) and The Egoist (1879). |