-09_Humour on Matters ''Literary''.htm Chapter 7 Humour on Matters "Literary" It is well known that Sri Aurobindo is a multisplendoured creative genius. Every field that he has touched he has adorned with a golden achievement. During his life he has been successively a teacher of extraordinary calibre, a politician of rare worth and, finally, a Mahayogi par excellence. And as a creative writer how many diverse fields he has made bis area of exploration! And everywhere he has brought the master's touch of insight and excellence. To quote Amal Kiran's significant words, "How shall we crown Sri Aurobindo? Is he greater as a Yogi than as a philosopher? Does the literary critic in h

Chapter 2 Humour as an Art Humour is a marvellous art; humour is a difficult art. To be a humorist of class, that is to say, someone consciously skilled in comic artistry, is not at all an easy task. To be so requires a different sort of genius. Yes, only a genius can become a veritable humorist; yet the irony of the situation is that an altogether different and contrary impression prevails in the popular mind. As Prof. Walter Jerrold has sorrowfully remarked, men of wit and humour are not as a rule considered men of letters, or even persons of literary training or experience.1 How erroneous the idea is! The poet talked of the "loud laugh that speaks t

-14_Sri Aurobindo^s Wit.htm Chapter 12 Sri Aurobindo's Wit What is wit? The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines it as the "power of giving sudden intellectual pleasure by unexpected combining or contrasting of previously unconnected ideas or expressions." Wit is indeed a form of intellectual quickness, raillery and repartee, which is apt to startle our mind with delectable surprise, often through flashes of isolated sentences or even of words or phrases. Now to produce the proper kind of wit and joke is not at all an easy matter; it requires a veritable genius of words to do so. There should be some sort of inevitability in the judicious use and arrangement of the words and phrases em

-15_Sri Aurobindo^s Humour-Miscellany.htm Chapter 13 Sri Aurobindo's Humour-Miscellany In the last chapter, we have given a number of examples of Sri Aurobindo's wit; the present chapter will be devoted to the exemplification of his sustained humour. Wit, as we have already noted, is a form of intellectual quickness, raillery and repartee; it may often be the flash of an isolated sentence. For its production the writer or the speaker, as the case may be, often takes recourse to verbal jugglery. Humour, on the contrary, - in its technical sense and not in its generic connotation - has to rise to a higher level and exploit for its production the artful manipulation of the idea

-11_Sri Aurobindo^s Humour in Verse.htm Chapter 9 Sri Aurobindo's Humour in Verse Once a budding poet sent up some of his poems to Sri Aurobindo for the latter's perusal and comment. Sri Aurobindo remarked that there were certain "funny" things in these poems but nevertheless they were "fine". The word "funny" somewhat hurt the feelings of the amateur poet and he complained to Sri Aurobindo: "You find 'funny' things in my poems? Then, Sir, you have only to ask me to stop writing." But Sri Aurobindo consoled him with these words: "But why do you object to fun? Modern opinion is that a poet ought to be funny (humorous) and that the objection to funniness in poetry is a romantic superst

-12_Humour in Sri Aurobindo^s Plays.htm Chapter 10 Humour in Sri Aurobindo's Plays Whether in the literatures of ancient times or in classical literature or in the literature of today, dramatic compositions have provided a rich and fertile field for the production and display of humour. To cite only two instances among a host of others, we are immediately reminded of the comic characters of Shakespeare's Falstaff and Moliere's Monsieur Jourdain who desperately tried to be a 'Bourgeois Gentilhomme'. The humour of Falstaff is based on "the chasm of contrast between his ungainly, inglorious person and the new glory of Elizabethan England." Prof. Stephen Leacock's remarks are worth rec

-08_On Matters ''Logical''.htm Chapter 6 On Matters "Logical" Logic and logical reasoning provide us with a rich warehouse wherein to gather material for a sumptuous feast of humour. Most of the elements leading to the production of comical effect in this field have their fountain-head in what is called fallacious argument. Now, the dictionary meaning of the word 'fallacy' is 'a misleading argument'. Logicians use the term to designate an argument which, though basically incorrect, is psychologically persuasive to an unreflective mind. Upon examination, the unsoundness of the argument and hence the incorrectness of the conclusion drawn are easily detected. There are two broad group

-07_On Matters ''Medical''.htm Chapter 5 On Matters "Medical" Medicines and the medical profession, physicians and surgeons, their diagnoses, prescriptions and operation procedures, have all provided a hunting-ground for the humorists to pick their games from. As Sri Aurobindo pointed out to his doctor-disciple, "the temptation of a joke at doctors has always been too much for any lay resistance."1 Here are a few typical humorous anecdotes concerning the disciples of Hippocrates and Dhanwantari. (1)Dr. so and so had a fancy to visit a far-off village and dwell there for a month in the midst of the simple village-folk. When the time came for his departure back, - and the doctor was v

Chapter 1 Sri Aurobindo and Humour Sri Aurobindo and humour? - What a preposterous subject! And to venture to write a book of four hundred fifty pages on a theme like 'Humour in Sri Aurobindo's Writings'? - What a queer idea bordering on the incredible! And to try to evoke the image of a smiling Sri Aurobindo? - Is it not divorced from all facts of the case? Can one remember having seen a photograph of Sri Aurobindo, even a single one, either pertaining to his early period of sojourn in England or to his days of active youth spent in Baroda and in Calcutta or even to his last year of physical existence - the year 1950, where Sri Aurobindo is found even wi

-17_Sri Aurobindo^s Satirical Humour.htm Chapter 15 Sri Aurobindo's Satirical Humour The movement of the humorous impulse as well as its expression in words may not in all cases be inspired by human kindliness. If not properly handled they may easily degenerate into mere mockery and sarcasm arising out of personal malice and conveyed through the medium of impish invectives. Sarcasm has for its aim the infliction of psychological pain on the object with a perverted sense of sardonic pleasure: it often enough represents the 'sneer of the scoffer and the snarl of the literary critic' which 'scrapes the human feeling with a hoe.' But this is only the undesirable negative stream of hum