TOPIC: VICTORIAN COMEDY, HEINRICH HEINE, GEORGE ELIOT
Title: How to Read a Victorian Comedy in the 20th Century
he need for comedy pervades through time and space, but it is at heart subjective. The skit that makes one man's face redden with laughter may make another's frown in distaste. George Eliot reached across geographical boundaries in search of "German Wit" and found Heinrich Heine, a contemporary satirist whom she calls, "a humorist," "a wit," and "a lover of freedom." We watch Eliot rhetorically stoop and condescend her way into her discussion of Heine. I myself find this amusing considering her lengthy praises at the end of the essay. We study literature of the past, and in doing so break barriers of time as well as space...how do we develop criticisms without looking pompously patronizing? Of course, the answer is to understand our own subjectivity, the nature of the intended audience, and the differences between the two.
Our first step to understanding comedy is to identify its parts - dealing with comedy as a whole is daunting and vague, as we have seen in our early class discussions. George Eliot has revealed two key concepts for us, these being wit and humor. She defines these terms for us on pages 219-220, and I have checked her descriptions against those of Abrams' Glossary of Literary Terms. If two major literary critics' opinions of wit and humor weren't enough, I pressed my classmates for their own definitions, and we settled on the following:
| Wit: | Humor: |
| Highbrow | Vulgar |
| Short and spontaneous | Prolix |
| Intended as comic | Unintentionally comic |
| "Perennial" (221) | "liable to be superannuated" (221) |
Indeed, both Martin Chuzzlewit and Barchester Towers appear to contain both witticisms and humor, which we categorize as we see fit, but we are in an uninformed position; we must look to the subjectivity of these novels' intended audience.
To fully understand the Victorian attitude towards comedy, or towards anything in general, I would have to become as well-versed in the history, social conditions, and psychological trends of the 19th century as a university professor. This is impractical, but a nominal awareness of these factors is truly necessary to facilitate a modern reader's comprehension of the plot. How can we sympathize with characters, or despise them, or realize their motivations if we have no knowledge of the culture the characters were molded from? The Oxford edition of Trollope's Barchester Towers certainly left much to be desired in this aspect, especially considering the religious theme that drives the entire novel. The introduction hardly serves its purpose as a preparation towards the reading of the novel, as it discusses details of characters that the reader has yet to encounter! A few excerpts from Richard Altick's Victorian People and Ideas1 seem a more satisfying start into Victorian literature, allowing the reader to settle into the plot without being overly distracted by historical, religious, or social themes that are unfamiliar. The singular advantage of a college curriculum is clear in the survey of Victorian literature, as supplemental readings can be assigned to assist today's reader in recognizing the difference between his own values and those of a Victorian.
One of the most important and volatile issues to arise in a modern reading of Victorian comedy is that of "funniness"...was Martin Chuzzlewit really a belly-shaking laugh for Victorians, or was it a subtle smirk? George Eliot claims that humor in its many forms tends to be superannuated, and yet I find the most amusing moments to be simple, physical humor:
"[Mr. Pecksniff]...took a long breath, and tapping at
the window, shouted with stentorian blandness: 'Boh!'
Cherry dropped her pen and screamed." (398, Penguin Classics ed.)
Meanwhile, the wit of the text sometimes goes on and on, metaphors extended so far that they lose their novelty and no longer elicit even a smile. The secondmost factor is more deeply rooted in our own American system of beliefs, which holds little understanding of and no tolerance for class-segmented societies. Instead of taking the class relationships for granted in Martin Chuzzlewit, we rebel against them and become diverted from the comedy of the novel. Condescending as George Eliot seems at the opening of her essay, "German Wit: Heinrich Heine," she does manage to leap over the cultural chasm by considering foreign cultures at large, their impact on one man, and how Heine's wit was interpreted by his peers. These are the necessary steps to comprehending and appreciating comic literature that is not of our time and/or place.
Victorian comedies cannot be criticized as if they were developed in a vacuum. We also cannot read literature without subconsciously evaluating it according to our own system of values. Comedy is particularly difficult to appreciate when it must be explained to us...do we not have a tendency to feel insulted when we cannot understand a joke? George Eliot set an admirable example in her historical exploration of Heine, supplying us with subtle explanations to his wit. The editors of antiquated comedies would do well to follow suit, so that we could enjoy the comedy for what it was meant to be.
FOOTNOTES:
1 Richard D. Altick, Victorian People and Ideas (New York, 1973: W. W. Norton & Company).
Copyright Kaye Anfield, 1996.