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‘My Brother Esau is an Hairy Man’: An Encounter between the Comedian and the Preacher

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Graeme Garrett
Graeme Garrett
Affiliation:
Whitley College University of Melbourne
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Extract

Humour is a serious business. The immediate aim of the comedian may be simply to entertain. But if he is successful in his art, his achievement goes far beyond this limited purpose. As much as the scientist or the novelist, the humorist holds the mirror up to man and reflects, often in sharpest focus, aspects of man's condition in and relationship to the world which otherwise might pass unnoticed. Man, after all, is the only animal which laughs, just as he is the only animal which conducts experiments or tells stories. This simple and undeniable fact surely reveals something about the kind of being man is and the kind of world he inhabits. The world is not only a realm of physical order whose regularity man-the-scientist may observe and chart; nor is it only a great theatre where the drama of human history unfolds in which man-the-actor plays and (modestly) directs his part. The world is also comical, and man-the-humorist perceives and participates in its comic structures.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , June 1980 , pp. 239 - 256
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1980

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References

page 239 note 1 We can discount the call of the kookaburra and the hyena as only of accidental phonetic similarity to human laughter. They have no more direct relationship to the special logic and function of laughter than does the roar of a lion.

page 239 note 2 Bergson, Henri, Le Rire (Paris: F. Alcan, 1916)Google Scholar; Freud, Sigmund, ‘Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious’, in Brill, A. A. (ed.), The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud (New York: Modern Library, 1938)Google Scholar; Koestler, Arthur, The Act of Creation (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1964), especially chs. 1–4.Google Scholar

page 240 note 1 Berger, Peter L., A Rumor of Angels: Modem Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural (Garden City, New York: Doubleday-Anchor, 1970)Google Scholar. Berger is a sociologist. However, unlike many of his profession, he is not simply interested in religion as a social phenomenon. He is concerned with the theological meaning of religious faith. ‘If theologizing means simply any systematic reflection about religion’, he writes, ‘then it would seem plausible to regard it as too important to leave to the theological experts’ (p. x). On the issue of theology and humour, at least, he may well be right!

page 241 note 1 ibid., p. 70.

page 241 note 2 ibid.

page 242 note 1 ‘Take a Pew' is a sketch from the Revue, ‘Beyond the Fringe’, recorded on the E.M.I. Parlophone Disc No. PMCO 1145. The sketch is performed (and written?) by Alan Bennett. (No date is given. The record was released, I think, in the late 'fifties.) The text is quoted with the kind permission of the holder of the copyright.

page 244 note 1 See especially, The Act of Creation, pp. 32–49; 57–63.

page 245 note 1 ibid., p. 33.

page 246 note 1 ibid., p. 35. This definition echoes strongly Bergson's summary statement: ‘A situation is invariably comic when it belongs simultaneously to two altogether independent series of events and is capable of being interpreted in two entirely different meanings at the same time.’ Cited by Berger, , A Rumor of Angels, p. 69.Google Scholar

page 247 note 1 cf. Koestler's, discussion of satire, The Act of Creation, pp. 72ff.Google Scholar

page 250 note 1 cf. Tillich, Paul, Systematic Theology (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1964), Vol. I, pp. 181ff.Google Scholar

page 253 note 1 In the absence of direct information about the comedian's own theological (or anti-theological) preferences it is, of course, impossible to say for sure what he intended by the sketch, beyond its capacity to entertain. However, the hermeneutics of humour—like the hermeneutics of other texts—cannot be controlled simply by the conscious intentions of the author. A joke may contain much more than its creator knows. The disclosure it actually makes of the human condition depends as much, and probably more, on the impact it makes on others and what is revealed on close analysis.

page 254 note 1 Barth, Karl, The Word of God and the Word of Man (New York: Harper Torch-books, 1957), p. 186.Google Scholar