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42 - Humour

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2019

Scott Carpenter
Affiliation:
Carleton College.
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Summary

The term itself is slippery. Originally denoting moisture, ‘humour’ came to describe bodily fluids thought to influence temper and disposition, eventually referring to mood itself, good or ill. Only later did the word develop the sense of that which lifts the spirits, inducing lightness and levity – specifically all things comical. There are three main theories about what makes us laugh. The first, coming from Aristotle and supported later by Thomas Hobbes (1998 [1651]) and Charles Baudelaire (1956 [1855]), focuses on the notion of power. It suggests that laughter derives from our sudden recognition of superiority (usually our own), especially when this difference is presented with grotesque exaggeration. Baudelaire also insisted on the function of surprise, which Henri Bergson (1911 [1900]) further developed in his landmark study on laughter, referring to the general category of incongruity: in slapstick humour, for example, we see humans acting like dumb animals or simple machines, and the strangeness of this combination is cause for mirth. Finally, Freud (1960 [1905]) pointed to the value of humour as a form of relief: jokes or comical stories provide an opportunity for expressing sentiments that might otherwise be repressed or painful, or too transgressive for normal discourse. In this last case, humour masks seriousness. Many commentators have noted that these functions can operate simultaneously for the production of humour.

Less commented on are the natural connections between humour and travel writing. However, encounters with cultural difference are heavy with the ingredients for comedy: they often place the travelling narrator in a position of extreme inferiority (beleaguered by fatigue, foreign language and cultural misunderstanding); they reveal practices and behaviours so surprising that they may seem non-human; they reveal new boundaries for what is considered taboo or sacred, bringing difficult subjects suddenly into sharp relief.

The introduction of humour into travel writing is not a modern invention, but its presence has become commonplace over time. It occurred with special density in fictional narratives that spoofed the genre. In The Persian Letters (1721), for example, Montesquieu managed to skewer French dress, habits, politics and religion by describing how a visitor from Isfahan would perceive French society. In more ‘authentic’ narratives, there is evidence of humour too. In Bougainville's description of Tahiti (in Voyage autour du Monde, 1771), the author related most experiences with the gravity of a scientific report, but humour sometimes cropped up.

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Chapter
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Keywords for Travel Writing Studies
A Critical Glossary
, pp. 122 - 124
Publisher: Anthem Press
Print publication year: 2019

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