The 18th International Society for Humor Studies International Conference

The Danish University of Education, Copenhagen, Denmark

July 03 - 07, 2006

‘The haunting fear

that someone, somewhere, may be happy’:

Puritan objections to humor.

Sammy Basu PhD (Princeton)

Associate Professor of Politics

900 State St

Willamette University

Salem, Oregon 97301 USA

E: sbasu@willamette.edu

There is much to be gleaned about the possibilities and perils of humor from its critics, and there were no more formidable critics of humor, laughter and play than the mid-17th c. English Puritans. Such a focus is particularly apposite if J.S. Mill was correct when he argued that secularized residues of Calvinist Puritanism in the form of behavioral norms and habits of mind continue to pervade an erstwhile secular modernity. In successive sections of this paper, alert to the secondary scholarship on both Puritanism and religion in general vis-à-vis humor but drawing primarily upon a close reading of primary sources from 1600-1670, I will consider:

I. the identity of the puritans;

II. the puritan preference for mourning and tears; and

II. four sorts of puritan objections to humor and laughter:

1. ‘Damnable heresies,’

2. ‘Strange opinions,’

3. ‘Fearfull divisions,’ and

4. ‘Looseness of life and manners,’

corresponding to excesses in four sorts of humorous pleasure:

release,

incongruity,

superiority, and

relief.

I. the identity of the Puritans

1600-1660

Catholics,

Laudian Anglicans, and

Merry Old England

v.

The Presbyterians

The Independent

The (Fundamentalist) Sectaries

‘what is he that loveth not mirth?’

II. the puritan preference for mourning and tears;

‘strong crying and tears’:

Mourning and Repentance

Scripture and its exegesis

Original Sin

Calvinism

National bad times

Anon. 1647. Reall persecution, or, The foundation of a general toleration, displaied and portrayed by a proper emblem, and adorned with the same flowers wherewith the scoffers of this last age have strowed their libellous pamphlets.

It depicts Marpriest qua archetypal joker with bladder and belled-ears. In the manner of the Charivari ritual he is riding (and thereby bestializing) a 'Sectary' (religious separatist) who has supposedly been fooled and made to look foolish by one of Marpriest's more egregiously radical pamphlets, Martin's Eccho.

In forerunners of the cartoon voice bubble, Marpriest declares: “Behold my habit like my witt/ Equalls his on whom I sitt”

while the Sectary admits:

“My cursed speeches against Presbetry/ Declares unto the world my foolery.”

The caption below reads: “For Opposeing Authority Revileing the Assembly Slandering the Government by Presbetry and disturbing the ministers at the time of their publique excersise by giveing up bills in mockery calling the ministers preists rideing slaves, horse leeches cormorants gorbellyd Idoll Consistory of devills etc: hath not this discovered ishmaels carnall spirits persecuting godly Isaaks” (recalling the Epistle of the Galatians, 4.29).

III. four sorts of puritan objections to humor and laughter:

1. ‘Damnable heresies,’

The boor

2. ‘Strange opinions,’

The Buffoon

3. ‘Fearfull divisions,’

The cynic, or misanthrope

4. ‘Looseness of life and manners,’

The hysteric

III. What is humor?

Table 1: Essence:

humorous

juxtaposition

Table 2: Four modes of appreciation

PHYSIOLOGICAL			COGNITIVE
	humorous	juxtaposition
AFFECTIVE			EVALUATIVE

Table 3. Four theories of humor (ous pleasure)

PHYSIOLOGICAL RELIEF lightness			COGNITIVE INCONGRUITY witness
	humorous	juxtaposition
beastliness RELEASE			sharpness SUPERIORITY
AFFECTIVE			EVALUATIVE

Table 4. Four objections to humor

[Hysteric] PHYSIOLOGICAL RELIEF lightness			[Buffoon] COGNITIVE INCONGRUITY witness
	humorous	juxtaposition
beastliness RELEASE			sharpness SUPERIORITY
AFFECTIVE [Boor]			EVALUATIVE [Cynic]