The Meanings of Comedy* - Shakespeare Navigators

Sypher I rrrt MEANTNGS oF coMEDy
53
incompatible standards without resolving the clash between them.
Thus we laugh when Tartuffe brings our conflict into the open, because
we may not wish to recognize that we, too, seek power, women,
and money, and that all these may be more desirable than piety. We
laugh at Tartuffe because we do not intend to see clearly what he
means. We may also laugh at Falstaff because we do not-must notgrant
that good sherris sack is, after all, the real value of life, and
honor only a word. Falstaff raises questions we wish to blink, and
we laugh at him to prevent his damaging our convictions which
are taboo.
In its boisterous moods comedy annihilates the power of evil in
the person of the scapegoat. Yet we have already seen that this triumphant
laughter is a mode of defense, because the enemy who has
power over us must be neutralized by transforming him into a harmless
victim.l3 Falstafl we have said, has the sacred power of a god of
fertility; therefore he must be disguised before he can be laughed
out of existence, lest he threaten us too closely. Comedy is at once
a defense against the Enemy and a victorious assault upon Him. He
vanishes in an explosion of choral mirth.
At its most triumphant moments comic art frees us from peril
without destroying our ideals and without mustering the heavy artil-
Iery of the puritan. Comedy can be a means of mastering our disillusions
when we are caught in a dishonest or stupid society. After we
recognize the misdoings, the blunders, we can liberate ourselves by a
confident, rvise laughter that brings a catharsis of our discontent. We
see the flaws in things, but we do not always need to concede the
victory, even if we live in a human world. If we can laugh wisely
enough at ourselves and others, the sense of guilt, dismay, anxiety, or
fear can be lifted. Unflinching and undaunted we see where ue are.
This strengthens us as well as society.
When comic art is generous enough, it is a triumphant affirmation
of truth-which, we see, cannot be damaged by our failures. "Great
comic artists assume that truth may bear all lights." la In this belief
lies the heroic courage of the comedian. The unvanquishable Falstaff
is an ageless witness that truth can bear all lights: this comic giant
proves that honor cannot be sullied in Eastcheap or on Gadshill. He
13 The best discussion of the complicated psychology behind this sort of comedy
seems to me Hugh Dalziel Duncan: Language and Literature in Society,
1953, which I have utilized in the following comments.
1a So argues Duncan, p. 53 ff. Ernst Cassirer has also written a major comment
on the "sympathetic vision" of the great comic artists who, he says, bring
us close to the realities of our human world and dissolve our scorn in a
laughter that liberates us (Essal on Man).