The cure of self-consciousness / by James Alexander.

  • James Alexander
Date:
1915
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The cure of self-consciousness / by James Alexander. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    through an unfortunate and accidental exchange of travel- ling bags, rises in court, takes up his bag to draw out his legal papers connected with the case before the court, and draws out instead a pair of corsets. The scene is equally ludicrous to him and to the court, and although em- barrasing at the moment, would no doubt have afforded him much amusement afterwards had it happened in real life. The close connexion between the ludicrous and ridicule is clearly shown in caricature. If the caricature is excel- lent in representation it excites the ludicrous, but if it is badly expressed, or goes beyond the limits of good taste, it becomes ridiculous. The naturalness of the ludicrous, if we may so term it, where there is no attempt or intention to create the situa- tion is sometimes met with in the contents-boards of news- papers, or in a newspaper where the eyes pass rapidly from one headline to another, thus: “The Bishop of X indisposed—Due to drink ’’; ‘‘ The Chancellor’s New Bull —Five Shillings and Costs ’”’; “ A Rising Dramatist—Hoist with his own petard.”” We feel the absurdity strongly in such cases, and they at once arouse our sense of the ludicrous. Enough has been said in connexion with the ludicrous to convince you that it is not nearly so deadly as ridicule. It is the failing of the self-conscious person not to be able to see this; he places both in the same category and on the same level. He fails to see that in the ludicrous there is no reflection made upon the actor in the scene, either morally or intellectually. If he will but grasp this clearly, he will be able to moderate his fear of the ludicrous. We shall go into this fully when we deal with the control of the fear of the ludicrous.
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