AustLit

'Asked to talk or write on humour in prose or poetry, I have frequently refused. Audiences generally expect that a discussion of humour should be humorous in itself, but that's a matter for after-dinner speakers, paid comedians, and stand-up comics who work from scripts with another end in view. I have reflected on comedy and humour for as long as I can remember, wondering less perhaps at the things that make us laugh or smile than at the fact that we do so. Like the nature of poetry, the nature of comedy compels self-reflection in those who practise it or are concerned by it. Umberto Eco's novel The Name of the Rose hinges on the attempt to expunge comedy from the world, yet the joke, if one can call it that, is that the copy of the ancient treatise that lies at the heart of the novel's interest kills those who inquire too deeply. It is as if humour is, in one interpretation of the medieval world-view (for that world is infinitely amenable to manipulation), a notion not to be countenanced. The novel itself is a disquisition on the mind of a puritan for whom the idea of a divine comedy is appalling; to such a mind, a comedic account of nature appears to call into question the seriousness of the creator—artist. Eco's puritanical custodian of the book on comedy is a type of censor for the ages: closed-society guardian, book-burner, torturer and burner of people. Comedy and humour, so considered, are serious matters.' (Introduction)