They purposely disenchant us--while
the others rather show us how sad a thing it is to be disenchanted at
all.
Ben Jonson, who had in respect of sturdy good sense very much the same
sort of mind as his name-sake Samuel, and whose "Discoveries," as he
calls them, are well worth reading for the sound criticism they contain,
says:
The parts of a comedy are the same with [those of] a tragedy, and
the end is partly the same; for they both delight and teach: the
comics are called _didaskaloi_[1] of the Greeks, no less than the
tragics. Nor is the moving of laughter always the end of comedy;
that is rather a fowling for the people's delight, or their fooling.
For, as Aristotle says rightly, the moving of laughter is a fault in
comedy, a kind of turpitude that depraves some part of a man's
nature without a disease. As a wry face moves laughter, or a
deformed vizard, or a rude clown dressed in a lady's habit and using
her actions; we dislike and scorn such representations, which made
the ancient philosophers ever think laughter unfitting in a wise
man. So that what either in the words or sense of an author, or in
the language and actions of men, is awry or depraved, does strongly
stir mean affections, and provoke for the most part to laughter. And
therefore it was clear that all insolent and obscene speeches, jests
upon the best men, injuries to particular persons, perverse and
sinister sayings (and the rather, unexpected) in the old comedy did
move laughter, especially where it did imitate any dishonesty, and
scurrility came forth in the place of wit; which, who understands
the nature and genius of laughter cannot but perfectly know.
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