7.51 Bergson — Le Rire — Epoché
What you will be able to do Read the opening of Henri Bergson's Le Rire , a short philosophical essay on what makes us laugh. Follow a philosophical argument written for the general reader: observations, examples, a law, and its consequences. Understand Bergson's central idea, du mécanique plaqué sur du vivant , and his view of laughter as a social gesture. Use the vocabulary of comedy and of the body: stiffness, suppleness, clumsiness, puppets. Sentences from this text, before the notes. Read the French aloud; all of them come back below. French English L’indifférence est son milieu naturel. Indifference is its natural element. C’est pourquoi l’homme est tombé, et c’est de quoi les passants rient. That is why the man fell, and that is what the passers-by laugh at. c’est ce qu’il y a d’involontaire dans le changement, c’est la maladresse. it is what is involuntary in the change, it is the clumsiness. Mais par manque de souplesse, par distraction ou obstination du corps, par un effet de raideur ou de vitesse acquise, les muscles ont continué d’accomplir le même mouvement quand les circonstances demandaient autre chose. But through lack of suppleness, through absent-mindedness or obstinacy of the body, through stiffness or momentum, the muscles went on making the same movement when circumstances called for something else. Seulement, les objets qui l’entourent ont été truqués par un mauvais plaisant. Only, the objects around this person have been rigged by a practical joker. Les attitudes, gestes et mouvements du corps humain sont risibles dans l’exacte mesure où ce corps nous fait penser à une simple mécanique. The attitudes, gestures and movements of the human body are laughable exactly in so far as that body makes us think of a mere mechanism. Prerequisites : 7.50 — this reading follows 7.50 Reading . The academic French of 5.25 Vocabulary and the specialist terms of 5.23 Vocabulary will help, and the comedy of 7.46 Reading and 7.48 Reading gives examples of what Bergson describes. About this text Henri Bergson (1859–1941) was the most famous French philosopher of his time. His lectures at the Collège de France drew crowds, and he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927. His philosophy opposes living time, la durée , to the mechanical, measurable time of science. Le Rire first appeared as three articles in 1899 and as a book in 1900; it is the most widely read of his works, partly because its examples come from everyday life and from the theatre. This lesson gives about 3,050 words from the first chapter, Du comique en général : the three observations with which Bergson begins, the examples of the man who falls in the street and the victim of a practical joke, his definition of laughter as a social punishment of stiffness, the law of the comedy of the body, and the passage where he names his central image. Omissions are marked […]. Bergson writes in the first person plural, nous , as French scholars often do. The text is that of the edition published in Paris by Félix Alcan in 1938, as transcribed in French Wikisource. Reading Bergson Three observations. Before any theory, Bergson makes three remarks. The comic is always human: we laugh at a hat only because of the human whim it shows. Laughter needs indifference: Le rire n'a pas de plus grand ennemi que l'émotion. And laughter needs a group: Notre rire est toujours le rire d'un groupe. From examples to a law. A man runs, trips and falls; the passers-by laugh, not at the fall itself but at its clumsiness, at a body that went on with the same movement when the situation called for another. From such examples Bergson draws a general law, stated in a single sentence: the body is funny exactly in so far as it makes us think of a mere machine. Laughter as correction. Society needs attention and elasticity from its members. Stiffness of body, mind or character is suspect to it, but it is not a crime and cannot be punished by force. So society answers with a gesture: laughter. Cette raideur est le comique, et le rire en est le châtiment. Laughter, for Bergson, is not kind; it is a small social punishment. The style. Bergson writes clear, elegant French, with long sentences that move by stages, many images, and frequent appeals to the reader: Écoutez-le bien , Essayez, un moment . Notice how often he uses an image to make an abstract idea concrete: laughter rolling like thunder in the mountains, or a crossroads in a forest. Reading it a second time, part by part The question. What do a clown's grimace, a pun and a fine comedy have in common? Bergson will not define the comic but watch it grow, like something alive. Human. Nothing is comic outside what is human. Indifferent. Laughter requires a momentary anaesthesia of the heart: stop up your ears to the music, and the dancers look ridiculous. Social. Laughter needs an echo and an accomplice; we do not laugh at travellers' jokes if we are not of their group. Laughter must have a social function. The fall. The man who trips and the victim of a practical joke are funny for the same reason: a mechanical stiffness where we expect living suppleness. The function. Society demands constant adaptation; laughter punishes the stiffness and eccentricity that threaten it. The law. Attitudes and movements are funny in so far as the body reminds us of a machine; the comic drawing shows a jointed puppet inside the person. The crossroads. Du mécanique plaqué sur du vivant is the central image from which the rest of the book radiates. Full translation An English translation of the whole text, made for this course and kept close to the original. The numbers are the paragraph numbers of the original text, so you can move between the two. Laughter What does laughter mean? What lies at the bottom of the laughable? What could we find in common between a clown's grimace, a pun, a farcical mix-up of mistaken identities, and a scene of fine comedy? What distillation will give us the essence, always the same, from