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p As regards its idea-content and aesthetic significance the category of the comic is no less considerable than that of the tragic; indeed comedy occupies no less prominent a place in art than tragedy. Comedy can serve to depict equally fundamental social problems, 220 turning-points in history and profound contradictions drawn from life, as are to be found in tragedy. Although it may sound paradoxical the now proverbial expression—"laughter is a serious matter"—contains profound truth. As the saying went in ancient Rome, he who laughs at what is funny approaches laughter seriously.

p More often than not idealist aesthetics presented comedy as an art form of only secondary importance. Numerous idealist writings treating the artificially contrived “hierarchy” of artistic genres and forms of creative expression, list comedy among the “lower” genres and regard as its province man’s base and more primitive emotions and aspirations.

p Contrasting one artistic genre with another and viewing them as opposites is something alien to Marxist-Leninist aesthetics, which recognises that, while they are not interchangeable, all artistic genres must develop and grow, in order for a full reflection of life in art to be achieved.

p Laughter is a formidable weapon. Even those who see themselves as all-powerful are afraid of laughter, for they know it to be deadly. Positive uncorrupt forces in society have always taken into account the power of laughter. Engels regarded it as very important not only to single out the enemy’s inhumane and cruel traits but also his ridiculous ones, all the better to laugh at him. When exposing, for example, Bismarck’s Junker ideology, Engels advised his readers to write of their opponent not only in terms of contempt, but also in a mocking vein, to refer to Bismarck and Co. as donkeys, rogues, a pitiable band helpless before the tide of historical progress. Engels saw as the communists’ advantage the fact that their enemy was unable to rob them of their humour. While setting out the objectives of Soviet art, in a conversation with Lunacharsky, Lenin emphasised that the artistic propaganda of the socialist ideology should concentrate the people’s attention not only on those phenomena of life which reflect the encouraging development of all that is good and new, but also brand through laughter 221 everything which is a mockery both in Soviet society and elsewhere.

p Yet laughter is not merely a weapon for exposure. It is at the same time an inexhaustible source of joy and encouragement that upholds man’s faith in life and its purpose. It is a sign of strength born not of defeat, but of victory in the struggle. It expresses a radiant, buoyant sense of joy and well-being.

p The category of the comic (and humour) caused a great deal of trouble to those aestheticians who sought to "pin it down" within a rigid framework and define its formal properties. Even Cicero and Quintilian referred to the comic as a "formless and elusive Proteus". The Russian aesthetician L. A. Sakketti wrote in his Popular Aesthetics (1917) that the comic is mercury which cannot be confined even for an instant to any fixed limits because it will find the tiniest crack and slip out of the grasp of him who seeks to capture it.  [221•*  When Max Eastman told G. B, Shaw he intended to write a book about humour, the playwright warned: "There’s no more dangerous literary symptom, than a temptation to write about wit and humour. It indicates the total loss of both.”  [221•** 

p These statements uttered half in earnest, half in jest, reflect one and the same idea, namely that theoretical interpretation of the comic is impossible and that its essence defies definition.

p Marxist-Leninist aesthetics, drawing on a rich tradition of analysis of the comic, studies first and foremost the objective properties of those of life’s truths which are reflected in the concept of the comic.

p One of the principal subjects for comedy is provided by those phenomena of life which have already or will soon have outlived their usefulness. Phenomena, whose positive content has been exhausted, which have lost their right to existence and attempt in vain to disguise their 222 true nature, are branded through laughter. By bringing out these contradictions laughter can help to eliminate the obsolete. Herzen wrote in his day that laughter is one of the most powerful weapons against everything that has been overtaken by time but which God alone knows how, still keeps going, like some arrogant ruin obstructing the growth of fresh life and intimidating the weak.

p Fundamental to the comic is always the contradiction between pretentious, pompous, would-be important form and the empty, trivial, irrelevant content of this or that phenomenon portrayed. The core of the comic is provided not by mediocrity as such but by mediocrity with claims to elevated importance; not by age as such, but by age masquerading as youth; not by the obsolete as such, but by the obsolete parading as the up-to-date; not by nonentity as such, but by nonentity which swaggers and attempts to pull the wool over our eyes. Gogol called upon us to laugh not at crooked noses, but at crooked souls. Physical imperfections or ugliness are something which no morally sound individual can make fun of. Yet, if the owner of a "crooked nose" sees himself as an Adonis, then we cease to be mere observers of physical qualities, moral and aesthetic factors come into play and laughter can come into its own. We have all encountered at some time or another people with an inflated sense of their own importance, who bear themselves through life like some stately vase full to the brim with infinitely costly ointment, which however on closer inspection is quite empty. No doubt such figures as these inspired La Rochefoucauld’s subtle observation to the effect that "gravity is a mystery of the body invented so as to conceal the defects of the spirit.”  [222•* 

p Writings on questions of aesthetics and the theory of art start out as a rule from the fact that the comic serves to express certain contradictions: their differences begin once they confront the question as to precisely which 223 contradictions provide the core of the comic. According to Aristotle the comic is the result of a discord or contrast between the ugly and the beautiful. He sees comedy as the reproduction of the most despicable of men, not in all their depravity but from a comic angle. Ugliness that does not cause man suffering or harm is what he sees as comic. This approach of the Greek thinker or, as Marx called him, the Hegel of the ancient world, differed essentially from that of the real Hegel, who saw the comic as the contradiction between an actual phenomenon and the aesthetic ideal. However he was concerned first and foremost not with the comic in real life, but in art. This explains why, when analysing comedy situations, he focussed attention on the contradiction between idea and image. His forerunner Kant saw the essence of the comic in the contradiction between the base and the elevated. Jean Paul and Schopenhauer regarded the contradiction between the ridiculous and the reasonable as the essence of the comic, Schiitze on the other hand that between what is free and what is restricted (not free), Bergson singled out the contradiction between what is automatic and what is alive, Sully that between the familiar and normal on the one hand and the unaccustomed on the other, Volkelts in his turn opted for the contradiction between what is precious and that which would appear precious and so on and so forth. Although important observations are intrinsic to these conceptions and they do possess a degree of positive content, nevertheless in view of their metaphysical and idealist limitations they are of no methodological significance.

p In pre-Marxian aesthetics the most profound analysis of the nature of the comic was that provided by the Russian aestheticians of revolutionary-democratic leanings. For them the comic was not an abstract aesthetic category. They concerned themselves with a theoretical elaboration of the category mainly because comedy, satire and laughter were most important weapons in the social struggle. The problem of the comic had never been presented so organically and directly linked with social 224 contradictions and the goals of the movement for social emancipation in pre-Marxian aesthetics, as it was in the writings of the Russian revolutionary democrats of the nineteenth century. Herzen was to write: "There is no doubt that laughter is one of the most powerful weapons for destruction: Voltaire’s laughter struck and burned like lightning. Laughter brings down idols and laurels, and miracle-working icons and their silver casings are reduced by it to third-rate paintings in tarnished frames." Saltykov-Shchedrin in his turn remarked with every justification that comedy’s high calling was to "usher "all that has outlived its day into the realm of shadows.”

p Starting out from the materialist interpretation of the life of society Marx defined the inner essence of comic phenomena that occur in the course of historical development with reference to the old German feudal order as a comic, ridiculous phenomenon instead of a tragic one. This presentation of German feudal society was apposite, until its historical limitations degenerated into class self-interest. While that particular society was fighting against the new order that was only just taking shape, the inescapable nature of its downfall contained, according to Marx, the seeds of tragedy. Yet when the inevitability of the new order’s triumph became self- evident and the old order had clearly outlived its day, Marx then classified its resistance to the new forces at work in society as a manifestation of the comic in history. He wrote in this connection: "...the present German regime, an anachronism, a flagrant contradiction of generally recognised axioms, the nothingness of the ancien regime exhibited to the world, only imagines that it believes in itself and demands that the world should imagine the same thing. If it believed in its own essence, would it try to hide that essence under the semblance of an alien essence and seek refuge in hypocrisy and sophism? The modern ancien regime is only the comedian of a world order whose.true heroes are dead.”  [224•* 

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p Not only his examination of the development of German society, but also his understanding of the patterns at work in world history led Marx to a highly important theoretical conclusion shedding light upon the logic of the possible transformation of the tragic into the comic in the actual life of society. This conclusion provides us with the key to an understanding of the comic in artistic creativity. Marx wrote: "History is thorough and goes through many phases when carrying an old form to the grave. The last phase of a world-historical form is its comedy. The gods of Greece, already tragically wounded to death in Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound, had to re-die a comic death in Lucian’s Dialogues. Why this course of history? So that humanity should part with its past cheerfully.”  [225•* 

p So the social essence of comedy is to be found in the pretentiousness of obsolescent social forces and forms of the social order. Exposure through art of this pretentiousness helps mankind to set itself free from restrictive survival of the past, to destroy traditions of “dead” generations and deal them such a decisive blow that they cease to weigh on the minds of the living. Mark Twain once wrote that nothing can stand firm in the face of comedy’s onslaught, thus underlining the enormous power of comic art, this highly individual form of inexorably effective social criticism and self-criticism lent emotional depth through vivid artistic images. Comic art is active, always on the march, ready to engage in combat.

p In this work the concepts “comedy” and “satire” are not used to denote a genre that manifests itself in a variety of ways, in comedy of character, situation comedy, vaudeville, farce, etc. The comic is an evaluative category, a specific principle for the artistic generalised representation of phenomena drawn from life. This explains why comic characters and comic situations are to be encountered in works belonging to different genres.

p The comic evokes laughter, the subjective reaction that 226 corresponds closest of all to the nature of the category. However the concepts comic and funny are not identical. Laughter when stimulated physiologically or when the result of nervous tension has nothing to do with the comic. Laughter of that type is not an aesthetic phenomenon. Laughter only acquires the features of an aesthetic phenomenon when it has social implications.

p The comic is always funny, while what is funny is only comic when through it, as indeed through any aesthetic phenomenon, through outward form there is expressed the meaning and inner essence of this or that phenomenon, meaning which is evaluated from the standpoint of a specific aesthetic ideal.

p Hegel established a substantial difference between the comic and the funny, saying that laughter evokes no more than a pleasant sense of amusement, while through the comic is manifested the aesthetic evaluation of a phenomenon, which serves to express the disparity between a phenomenon and the ideal.

p Belinsky too considered it imperative to draw a distinction between the funny and the comic when defining comedy. "There is empty, trivial, worthless wit.. ." admitted the critic but he held that this only proved detrimental to art. He viewed as something quite different the wit which is characteristic of true art, wit which "stems from the ability to see things as they truly are, to capture their distinctive traits and give expression to their humorous aspects"  [226•* 

p When there is no clear distinction in a work of art between what is comic and what is funny, it acquires anti-artistic traits. There exist, regrettably, works of comedy whose authors seem to believe that the more gags can be crammed in, regardless of whether or not they have any bearing on the main plot, the more entertaining it will be and the more pleasure it will bring the audience. Comedy must of course be funny, for laughter is comedy’s power, 227 comedy’s weapon. Yet if laughter, instead of shedding light on the main idea behind a work or enriching its thought-content, merely serves to detract the audience’s attention from the comedy’s main goal, the superficial entertainment which results, represents, when all is said and done, no more than a substitution of trivial fun for the comic.

p In the comic, just as in any aesthetic category, there is not only an objective but also a subjective factor to be observed. Any individual bereft of a sense of humour must be limited and lacking rich inner resources. Harmonious development of the human personality presupposes a specific degree of emotional responsiveness including a sense of humour which can grow and mature. However the basis for the comic is rooted in the objective nature of things. Laughter serves to reveal not only the nature of the object ridiculed, but also that of the individual doing the laughing. Goethe remarked long ago that nothing sheds as much light on man’s character as the things he finds funny. Perception, revelation and reflection of the comic always make manifest the aesthetic ideal, which possesses a social character bound up with man’s world outlook.

p Lenin remarked once to Gorky that humour is a magnificent, sound quality. This sound quality is to be found in all truly comic art and the laughter evoked by this art. Yet the source of the comic in true art does not lie in the aestheticisation of life’s ugliness, but rather in combating that ugliness. Laughter can be both gentle and cruel, it can knock down and build up, but even the most harsh and damning laughter, given comedy in the necessary “proportion”, can serve not only to condemn what time has overtaken, but also to uphold what is positive.

p Proportion in comedy is captured with remarkable precision in Charlie Chaplin’s outstanding film The Great Dictator. Chaplin himself regarded as intrinsically important to that work the fact that dictators are terrible but funny at the same time, and indeed he sets out to make us laugh at them.

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p There is no denying that the comic situation built round the external similarity between dictator Hynkel of Tomania, in whom the whole world had no difficulty in recognising Hitler, and a Jewish barber, had infinite comic potential. The audience cannot help laughing the whole way through the film. Chaplin revels in all-out comedy and there are no holds barred in his ridicule of the "great dictator", his Italian rival and their ministers. Yet not for a minute does Chaplin dispel the tragic sense of terrible danger hanging over the world. His genius lay in, among other things, his mixture of the comic and the tragic: on the screen before us a comedy unfolds, yet the audience is never allowed to forget the tragic developments in the real world of that time.

p The finale of the film is far from orthodox. Leaving aside as it were the character of both barber and dictator, both of which he played himself, Chaplin, no longer playing a part, but in his role as artist and citizen, addressed the following impassioned appeal to humanity: "To those who can hear me, I say: ’Do not despair. ... Fight for liberty! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful—to make this life a wonderful adventure.... Let us fight for a new world—a decent world that will give man a chance to work—that will give youth a future and old age a security....’ "  [228•*  Not the maniac of a dictator with his mumbojumbo, or the little feller helpless in a cruel world that we know from Chaplin’s earlier films, but Chaplin himself, summons men to the struggle against fascism, war and inhumanity.

p The requirements of the comic genre were violated perhaps in this film, but those of life proved more powerful and determined the artistic shape of this film. Chaplin himself commented that he was unable to do otherwise: the film had given everyone plenty to laugh about but at the end jokes had to be put aside and the vital message proclaimed aloud to all mankind.

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p The progression of Chaplin’s artistic ideas in this film coincides with Gorky’s understanding of the goals of comic art. Gorky recommended to fellow artists that they single out their enemy’s comic aspects and brand them by means of laughter. He considered that art underlines the inescapable verdict history has in store for the enemy, precisely by singling out the comic side of his nature and subjecting him to ridicule.

p High comedy with serious implications is indeed set apart from comedy of the purely entertaining variety by the fact that it is not based on outward connection between various phenomena or unexpected turns of events. External comic devices and situations are used in serious comedy to bring out the inner meaning of the ridicule which penetrates the essence of the phenomena depicted. Comedy of this type embraces a wide range of human passions, virtues and vices, merits and shortcomings; it reflects a variety of relationships and aspects of life. Although the main objective of comedy is to expose, this is by no means its only calling.

p Saltykov-Shchedrin held that satire, and indeed this applies in essence to all aspects of comic art, is distinguished not only by its critical character but also by the positive element inherent in it, the positive ideal in the name of which criticism is undertaken. This means that ridicule of what is outlived and support for what is new in comedy represent two sides of a single indivisible entity.

p To a certain extent this applies to all comedy. All good comedy is a vehicle for some positive principle, regardless of whether or not it contains positive characters. Positive images and positive characters are not identical. The positive image of a work need not necessarily be a concrete character, positive inspiration may be unfolded through the whole fabric of a work’s ideas and even be implicit in the spectator’s negative reaction.

p Comedy is set apart from other genres by the fact that more often than not it upholds the aesthetic ideal not through direct demonstration of new phenomena of life 230 and through straightforward exposition of their positive content, but rather through indirect means, by making fun of all that contradicts the ideal, that stands in the way of its achievement. This is indeed one of the all-important features of the comic in general.

p An important feature of man’s perception of art—its active quality—makes itself felt with particular force in comic art.

p In his Philosophical Notebooks Lenin quotes Feuerbach with marked sympathy: "The clever manner of writing consists, among other things, in assuming that the reader also has a mind, in not expressing everything explicitly, in allowing the reader to formulate the relations, conditions and restrictions under which alone a proposition is valid and can be conceived.”  [230•*  These words give expression to one of the most important aspects of artistic creativity. Their overall methodological significance comes to the fore particularly clearly, when we analyse the nature of comic means for artistic expression. These are rooted in trust of the audience and they presuppose in that audience active thinking, acute powers of perception, a sense of humour and the ability to fill out the pictures provided by works of art with the help of their own imagination. According to Lenin, only the most unintelligent writer could conceive of a reader who was incapable of independent thought. When a comedy writer comes to resemble such writers, then he ceases to be a creator of true comedy.

p Belinsky held that the art of making men laugh was far more elusive than the art of moving them. At first glance this might appear a paradox. Yet this idea contains the seeds of a profound truth. It is relatively easy to produce the physiological reaction of laughter, while to bring out the funny aspects of the object of ridicule is difficult. The art of making men laugh has laws of its own. One of these is that the more an artist goes deliberately out of his way to make his creation funny, the 231 less comic it will appear to the audience. The leading Soviet actor and producer V. Toporkov recalls how during rehearsals of Tartuffe he achieved a meaningful interpretation of the part of Orgon, only after he stopped going out of his way to be funny. At once the role achieved a comic impact, when Orgon started to take seriously all the events taking place in his house. This actor with a splendidly subtle sense of humour, drawing on many years of theatrical experience, came to the conclusion that it is wrong ever to overplay comic parts, for it only serves to “flatten” them. Funny moments appear all the funnier when presented in a serious key.

p This isolated example reflects yet another law of the art of comedy: what is important is not actually making people laugh, but spotlighting funny aspects of the subjects portrayed. The more seriously an actor in a comic role behaves, the more comic that role becomes. In connection with his comedy The Wedding Gogol wrote: "Funny content comes into its own precisely thanks to the seriousness with which each of the characters in the comedy approaches his role.”

p If we recall the inimitable comic situations in which Charlie Chaplin finds himself in the films Modern Times and The Gold Rush and ask how these comic effects are achieved, the answer would be first and foremost through the actor’s faith in the convincing realistic nature of the character he was playing. Of course, the great artist has an infinitely wide range of comic techniques at his disposal, there is no end to the nuances of the comic artist’s palette. Yet both when his characters are extraordinarily moving and when they are brave or comic, Chaplin does not deliberately play for comic effects, his inexhaustible humour, his limitless reserves of irony and his remarkable sarcasm always stem quite naturally from the logic intrinsic to the character in question. This explains why Chaplin’s humour can be dramatic, tragic and uplifting or simply joyful: it would be difficult to imagine any facet of humour that did not come within Chaplin’s range.

p First-rate comic actors who lend the characters they 232 create comic implications compel their audience to laugh and cry, enjoy themselves and ponder, not only thanks to their profound understanding of their characters’ lives but also through their faithfulness to the nature and the laws of the comic element in which they themselves are completely at home.

p An important creative task is to define the parameters of the comic in every phenomenon and to decide accordingly the comic techniques and methods to be employed. Bitter ridicule demands exaggeration, branding and the blow-up of specific features. This is why we often encounter in comedy and particularly in satire the grotesque—blatant emphasis and exaggeration^ The grotesque is not an end in itself, but it provides an important means for the unfolding of a satirical character.

p Comic techniques cover a wide range and there is no end to the manifestations of the comic in art. Yet among the artistic means used for comedy and the genres of comic art a special place must be attributed to humour and satire.

p Humour is the most universal manifestation of the comic. Neither satire, nor parody, nor irony, nor farce, nor caricature, nor cartoons, nor comedy are possible without humour. Yet at the same time humour can be found in both life and art independent of any other specific manifestation of the comic. Humour is not only a universal category in comic art. A sense of humour is an essential quality for any artist: just as it is impossible to create without talent or artistic taste, so to be an artist of any kind is impossible without recourse to humour.

p The term “humour” first appeared in aesthetic writings of the eighteenth century. For two hundred years after that attempts have been made over and over again to define its place among the rest of aesthetic categories and define its relationship not only to the comic, but also to the tragic, the sentimental, etc.

p In the opinion of a number of writers the common feature uniting humorous works of art is the combination of the comic (the funny, amusing, light-hearted, ridiculous, 233 senseless, irrational, trivial, etc.) with the serious ( Schopenhauer), the sublime (Louis Latzarus, Lipps), the tragic (Karl Solger, Jean Paul), the sentimental (Stern), the great, significant, rational, etc. Accordingly our perception of humorous works leads to a whole complex of contradictory emotions: disdain and sympathy, mirth and grief, optimism and pessimism. Schiller described this mixture of feelings as a particular emotion all of its own which embraces irony, respect and grief.

p Heinrich Laube used an image to describe this emotion as "grief and joy meeting in a kiss"; he also likened it to Andromache smiling with tears in her eyes, or to Shakespeare’s "smiling in grief". Latzarus wrote that humour laughs with one eye and weeps with the other. This idea was also expressed by Gogol in his famous phrase: " visible laughter through tears invisible to the world outside”.

p Despite the contradictory combination of positive and negative emotions engendered by humour, the overall “balance” resulting from man’s contemplation and perception of humour is a sense of pleasure. This applies to humour in both life and art, but in art this pleasure always possesses an aesthetic aspect.

p The above-mentioned facets of humorous works which provide the objective foundation for the stimulation of emotions described presuppose that the humorist possesses certain subjective qualities, certain "spiritual riches" to use Hegel’s expression. The humorist has to be eager for knowledge of life: this quality consists mainly in an ability to appreciate the complex dialectics of those characteristics and aspects of reality, the contradictory combination of which is what characterises a humorous work.

p This ability is distinguished by the fact that it presupposes without fail a certain moral stand and qualities both on the part of the author, and on the part of the reader or beholder. Ghernyshevsky wrote: "Men who are responsive to humour are those who understand all the grandeur and worth of all that is lofty, noble, moral and 234 who are filled with a passionate love for it... .”  [234•*  A man without a sense of humour is, to use Nikolai Hartmann’s pithy phrase, a man "with an ethical defect" .  [234•** 

p Some aestheticians, while recognising the social nature of humour, nevertheless underestimate its social functions. The Soviet scholar N. Sretensky who correctly points out the difference between humour and satire, is mistaken when he categorically declares that humour "in all its shades—from gentle banter to sombre, melancholy musing—is depressed stifled laughter, reflecting social contradictions, which the individual is powerless to eradicate”.  [234•***  Many types of humour have absolutely nothing to do with despair and hopelessness, but on the contrary are tinged with optimism which as a rule has social roots. Humour of this sort, as aptly noted by Chaplin, "heightens our sense of survival and preserves our sanity. Because of humour we are less overwhelmed by the viciousness of life. It activates our sense of proportion. . .”.  [234•**** 

p Humour plays an enormous part in our lives. As pointed out earlier, it is often possible to form an opinion of someone on the basis of the things that make him laugh, and how he laughs. In this sense humour can be likened to X-rays showing up man’s inner qualities. The illustrious Russian historian Klyuchevsky regarded a gay, fun-loving, kind mind to be the most precious gift of Nature. Laughter subtly moulds man’s emotional sensibility. A lack of a sense of humour is a sign of emotional and intellectual limitations. A sense of humour not only helps us to analyse the fact that our shortcomings are but an extension of our merits, but also enables 235 us to rejoice in the fact that nothing human is alien to us.

p In conjunction with humour another important form of the comic is irony. While humour, as noted by Schopenhauer, is characterised by the serious implications behind jest, irony on the other hand is permeated with mockery concealed behind a mask of seriousness. When mockery is of a light, merely sly or sad character and is directed not only at someone else but also at its author then irony borders on humour. When ironic mockery acquires a venomous, bitter touch then it becomes sarcasm, a medium for annihilating criticism couched in exaggerated praise. Like humour, irony is an aspect of the comic and one of the stylistic means of expression employed for the comic.

p The comic facets of life are extremely varied. In order to criticise men’s weaknesses we do not only turn to humour and irony. When the comic is made a weapon in the struggle against what time has overtaken, a weapon in the struggle against the enemy, then it takes the form of satire.

p Here the term satire will be used in its general aesthetic sense, as a specific artistic method for the depiction of the real world that is widely used in a variety of forms and genres. Satire is threatening laughter, laughter that is cruel and merciless, that can turn into wrathful exposure. It is precisely satire, when used in this sense, that can be regarded as the highest, most effective form of criticism. The larger-than-life approach, exaggeration, hyperbole and grotesque are associated precisely with satire, more than with other types of comic art. Caustic, damning accuracy of critical assessment is found precisely in writing that employs such tools. Satire rejects out of hand everything that is not compatible with progressive social, moral and aesthetic ideals. Satirical methods leave their mark not merely on delineation of characters but also on the tone of conflicts arid the individualisation of the language used for the various parts. However, here as in all other art forms, particularly in comedy of character and situation, these methods are important not in 236 themselves but in so far as they bring out essential features of the character.

p A distinctive feature of satire is that it is always directed against phenomena found in the author’s contemporary world. If a satirist starts attacking things that either do not exist in the life of his time or which are not of essential importance to it, he risks producing something that other satirists will deride. So even when a satirist turns to phenomena which would seem to have outlived their day long since, having been depicted for example in the classical satirical comedies, he lends them a contemporary significance and compels his audience to think about features of life today.

p The diversity found in manifestations of the comic is a direct result of the diversity characteristic of life itself, but it is also shaped by the artist’s social and aesthetic ideas and the nature of his talent. Swift’s works for instance are characterised by the sarcasm and venom of ruthless satire, Rabelais’ by full-blooded, healthy, although on occasions coarse, jollity; Beaumarchais’ by sparkling, incredibly witty humour, Voltaire’s by wise, biting irony and Chekhov’s by a subtle smile tinged with sadness and wistful regret, etc. The reflection of the comic aspects of life in the work of every artist acquires its own particular nuances.

p The social essence of comedy can perhaps be most easily analysed when we examine the work of artists who lived and created at the same time and who brought us comic portrayals of similar subjects. Contemporaries who represent just such a case in point are the artists Gavarni and Daumier, known for their social caricature, who lived and worked in Paris during the first half of the nineteenth century. In Gavarni’s work we find him making good- natured, occasionally ironic fun of society’s shortcomings, while Daumier castigates, taunts, and passes sentence on the petty-minded philistine shivering in his shoes, who not only refuses to become involved with the formidable tide of revolution, but who even fears any allusion to it.

p Belinsky wrote that laughter often proves a vital 237 stepping-stone in our efforts to distinguish between truth and falsehood.  [237•*  What is more—not only for drawing this distinction, but also for rejecting and casting out falsehood and asserting what is true and good. Laughter with meaning behind it has never been something detached and impartial. It is not merely a witness, but an active fighter.

p The need for satire stems not only from the existence of the object of satirical ridicule in life itself, but also from the nature of the social forces opposing evil. Satire is brought forth by both objective and subjective factors; its pointedness is not merely a result of the inner rot of the things it castigates, but also reflects the moral fibre of the people anxious to wipe out everything which holds back progress. The fuller the realisation of our ideals in socialist society, the more intolerant man becomes of any manifestations of evil in life whatsoever. Satire is important not only at this point in time, but will remain so in the future as well. Socialist society is a young, healthy society: not only is it not afraid of criticism of its weaknesses through comedy, but on the contrary is anxious that there should be such criticism, for it knows the future belongs to it.

p Satire has many attendant problems. The prototypes who recognise themselves in satirical characters take offence, and more often than not resent the satire and protest. After his comedy Tartuffe had been banned Moliere said to the French king: "The tartuffes were able through cunning to find grace in your Majesty’s eyes; the originals have in the end succeeded in having the copy suppressed. . .." Hundreds of years have passed since Moliere’s play was written, yet the tartuffes of this world still behave in the same way.

p It must be remembered that satire is after all a twoedged weapon.

p The famous physician of the Middle Ages Paracelsus 238 wrote: all is poison, all is physic. A mere single dose makes of a substance poison or physic. Satire too is always both poison and cure. This is why the weapon of satire demands great caution, that is, it needs to be wielded deftly and with craftsmanship. Only if properly directed does satire reach its true goal, convey the ideas intended. Satirical comedy is an active attacking genre, for which it is always vital that the author should adopt a clearly defined, unequivocal stand. Clarity of purpose and wellaimed attack are indispensable.

The art of the comedy-writer, satirist and caricaturist is a powerful art form worthy of the deepest respect. Its advance ensures the purity and strength of socialist society, its confident march forward and rejection of all that stands between it and its lofty goals. The art of comedy helps to affirm the progressive social and aesthetic ideal.