Wit and its relation to the unconscious · Sigmund Freud
II THE TECHNIQUE OF WIT
We follow the beckoning of chance and take up as our first example of wit one which has already come to our notice in the previous chapter. In that part of the _Reisebilder_ entitled “Die Bäder von Lucca,” Heine introduces the precious character, Hirsch-Hyacinth, the Hamburg lottery agent and curer of corns, who, boasting to the poet of his relationship with the rich Baron Rothschild, ends thus: “And as true as I pray that the Lord may grant me all good things I sat next to Solomon Rothschild, who treated me just as if I were his equal, quite _famillionaire_.” It is by means of this excellent and very funny example that Heymans and Lipps have illustrated the origin of the comic effect of wit from the succession of “confusion and clearness.” However, we shall pass over this question and put to ourselves the following inquiry: What is it that causes the speech of Hirsch-Hyacinth to become witty? It can be only one of two things; either it is the thought expressed in the sentence which carries in itself the character of the witticism; or the witticism adheres to the mode of expression which clothes the thought. On whichever side the nature of the wit may lie, there we shall follow it farther and endeavor to elucidate it.
In general a thought may be expressed in different forms of speech—that is, in different words—which may repeat it in its original accuracy. In the speech of Hirsch-Hyacinth we have before us a definite form of thought expressed which seems to us especially peculiar and not very readily comprehensible. Let us attempt to express as exactly as is possible the same thought in other words. Lipps, indeed, has already done this and has thus, to some degree, elucidated the meaning of the poet. He says (p. 87), “We understand that Heine wishes to say that the reception was on a familiar basis, that is, that it was of the friendly sort.” We change nothing in the sense when we assume a different interpretation which perhaps fits better into the speech of Hirsch-Hyacinth: “Rothschild treated me quite as his equal, in a very _familiar_ way; that is, as far as this can be done by a _millionaire_.” We would only add, “The condescension of a rich man always carries something embarrassing for the one experiencing it.”[14]
Whether we shall remain content with this or with another equivalent formulation of the thought, we can see that the question which we have put to ourselves is already answered. The character of the wit in this example does not adhere to the thought. It is a correct and ingenious remark that Heine puts into the mouth of Hirsch-Hyacinth—a remark of indubitable bitterness, as is easily understood in the case of the poor man confronted with so much wealth; but we should not care to call it witty. Now if any one who cannot forget the poet’s meaning in the interpretation should insist that the thought in itself is also witty, we can refer him to the definite fact that the witty character is lost in the interpretation. It is true that Hirsch-Hyacinth’s speech made us laugh loudly, but though Lipps’s or our own accurate rendering may please us and cause us to reflect, yet it cannot make us laugh.
Now wherein lies the “technique” of this wit? What has occurred to the thought, in our own conception, that it became changed into wit and caused us to laugh heartily? The comparison of our conception with the text of the poet teaches us that two processes took place. In the first place there occurred an important abbreviation. In order to express fully the thought contained in the witticism we had to append to the words “Rothschild treated me just as an equal, on a familiar basis,” an additional sentence which in its briefest form reads: i.e., so far as a millionaire can do this. Even then we feel the necessity of an additional explanatory sentence.[15] The poet expresses it in terser terms as follows: “Rothschild treated me just like an equal, quite _famillionaire_.” The entire restriction, which the second sentence imposes on the first thus verifying the familiar treatment, has been lost in the jest. But it has not been so entirely lost as not to leave a substitute from which it can be reconstructed. A second change has also taken place. The word “familiar” in the witless expression of the thought has been transformed into “_famillionaire_” in the text of the wit, and there is no doubt that the witty character and ludicrous effect of the joke depends directly upon this word-formation. The newly formed word is identical in its first part with the word “familiar” of the first sentence, and its terminal syllables correspond to the word “millionaire” of the second sentence. In this manner it puts us in a position to conjecture the second sentence which was omitted in the text of the wit. It may be described as a composite of two constituents “familiar” and “millionaire,” and one is tempted to depict its origin from the two words graphically.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.