Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious

About this eBook

Author

Freud, Sigmund, 1856-1939

Title

Wit and its relation to the unconscious

Original Publication

New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1916.

Credits

Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)

Language

English

LoC Class

BF: Philosophy, Psychology, Religion: Psychology, Philosophy, Psychoanalysis

Subject

Wit and humor -- Psychological aspects

Category

Text

eBook-No.

75915

Project Gutenberg

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75915

Release Date

April 20, 2025

Copyright

Public domain in the USA.

Contents

1. 1.WIT AND ITS RELATION TO THE UNCONSCIOUS
2. 2.TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
3. 3.CONTENTS
4. 4.A. ANALYSIS — I INTRODUCTION — Presentation of the Subject by Other Authors — II THE TECHNIQUE OF WIT — Formation of Mixed Words — Condensation with Modification and Substitution — Condensation in Dreams — Wit Formed by Word-division — Manifold Application of the Same Material — Double Meaning and Play on Words — A Tale of Two American Generations — Ambiguity — The Tendency to Economy — Puns — Displacements — Nonsense as a Technical Means — Sophistic Faulty Thinking — Automatic Errors of Thought — Unification — Representation Through the Opposite — Outdoing wit — Indirect Expression — Indirect Expression with Allusion — Omission — Representation Through the Minute or the Minutest Element — Comparison — Doubt in Witty Comparisons — Peculiar Attributions — III THE TENDENCIES OF WIT [37] — Harmless and Tendency Wit — Pleasure Results from the Technique — Hostile and Obscene Wit — The Transformation of the Obscenity into Obscene Wit — The Function of Wit in the Service of the Tendency — Invectives Made Possible Through Wit — Rebellion Against Authority Through Wit — The Witty Cynicism — Cynical Witticisms and Self-criticism — Critical and Blasphemous Witticisms — Skeptical Wit
5. 5.B. SYNTHESIS — IV THE PLEASURE MECHANISM AND THE PSYCHOGENESIS OF WIT — The Factor of Actuality — Word-pleasure and Pleasure in Nonsense — Reproduction of Old Liberties — Play and Jest — Jest and Wit — The Development into Tendency-wit — The Fore-pleasure Principle — Play-pleasure and Removal-pleasure — V THE MOTIVES OF WIT AND WIT AS A SOCIAL PROCESS — Subjective Determination of the “Famillionaire” Witticism — The Impulse to Impart Wit — The Third Person of the Witticism — Laughter as a Discharge — Why the First Person Does Not Laugh — The Automatism of the Wit-process — Elements Favoring the Wit-process — Economy and Full Expenditure
6. 6.C. THEORETICAL PART — VI. THE RELATION OF WIT TO DREAMS AND TO THE UNCONSCIOUS — The Dream-work — The Unconscious — Condensation and Displacement in the Dream-work — The Formula for Wit-work — Wit as an Inspiration — The Unconscious and the Infantile — The Difference between Dream-technique and Wit-technique — Irony—Negativism — The Unconscious as the Psychic Stage of the Wit-work — Differences Between Wit and Dreams — VII WIT AND THE VARIOUS FORMS OF THE COMIC — The Naïve — Source of Comic Pleasure in the Naïve — Occurrence and Origin of the Comic — Comic of Motion — Ideational Mimicry — Comparison of Two Kinds of Expenditure as Pleasure-sources — Comic of Situation. — Comic of Expectation — Caricature — Unmasking — The Meeting of Wit and the Comic — Comic of Imitation — The Comic of Speech — Comic of Inadequacy — The Conditions of Isolation of the Comic — Conditions Disturbing the Discharge — The Psychogenesis of the Comic — The Infantile and the Comic — Humor — The Economy in Expenditure of Affect — Forms of Humor — The Relation of Humor to Wit and Comic — Formulæ for Wit, Comic, and Humor
7. 7.INDEX

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