Page:The World as Will and Idea - Schopenhauer, tr. Haldane and Kemp - Volume 2.djvu/286

276 incongruity, appears very distinctly. This species of the ludicrous is, on account of its exaggeration and distinct intention, in some respects related to parody. The procedure of the latter consists in this. It substitutes for the incidents and words of a serious poem or drama insignificant low persons or trifling motives and actions. It thus subsumes the commonplace realities which it sets forth under the lofty conceptions given in the theme, under which in a certain respect they must come, while in other respects they are very incongruous ; and thereby the contrast between what is perceived and what is thought appears very glaring. There is no lack of familiar examples of this, and therefore I shall only give one, from the "Zobeide" of Carlo Gozzi, act iv., scene 3, where the famous stanza of Ariosto (Orl. Fur., i. 22), "Oh gran bontà de' cavalieri antichi," &c., is put word for word into the mouth of two clowns who have just been thrashing each other, and tired with this, lie quietly side by side. This is also the nature of the application so popular in Germany of serious verses, especially of Schiller, to trivial events, which clearly contains a subsumption of heterogeneous things under the general conception which the verse expresses. Thus, for example, when any one has displayed a very characteristic trait, there will rarely be wanting some one to say, "From that I know with whom I have to do." But it was original and very witty of a man who was in love with a young bride to quote to the newly married couple (I know not how loudly) the concluding words of Schiller's ballad, "The Surety:"

"Let me be, I pray you, In your bond the third."

The effect of the ludicrous is here strong and inevitable, because under the conceptions through which Schiller presents to the mind a moral and noble relation, a forbidden and immoral relation is subsumed, and yet correctly and without change, thus is thought through it.