Well, God give them wisdom that have it, and
those that are Fools, let them use their talents.
Festes the Fool, Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare

I’ve always loved poetry. Beginning with the lighthearted, rhythmic and relatable poems we give to children; favorites like A.A. Milne and Robert Louis Stevenson. My love only increased when, as a 14-year-old in search of meaning, I found a small collection of Robert Frost in a used book store. I’d carry it around with me to read in the spaces between things. Soon I found Emily Dickinson and Langston Hughes. And finally came home to T.S. Eliot, Gerard Manley Hopkins, W.H. Auden, Jane Kenyon, even Dante if I try hard enough. Poetry gave words to things I felt, called my attention to things that I had never noticed, and instilled a kind of awe within me. These poets, these good poets–even the ones of my childhood–seemed to say collectively: stop! Look carefully. There is magic here. As I grew that magic seemed to translate into something more specific, not magic at all, but glory. Good poets have an uncanny ability to see glory where most overlook it. They see it in childhood daydreaming and play, in the way of a man with a woman, and in the natural world. Good poets can also point us to glory by forcing us to see all that is not glorious, in man’s failing, even in hell itself. Poetry, when done rightly, helps us look at a particular so carefully that we see something beyond it, something transcendent. Certainly not all poetry does this, but we won’t begrudge the whole craft for its few distasteful and distant cousins. Good poetry is that which grabs us and makes us see something differently. The best poetry is that which startles us and makes us see things for what they really are.

Most of us probably have a sense that poets do this. There is at least this mystery that surrounds them, this feeling that we’re missing something good when we don’t read or understand them. I don’t think it would surprise many if I said poets are worth listening to. But what may surprise some, is that I believe comedians have a similar value in our collective culture.

I don’t generally admit my relationship with comedy, perhaps because it’s less romantic to tell you that I love comedy, almost as much as I love poetry. It isn’t quite as mysterious to say that Monty Python bits always make me laugh out loud as it would be to say that I’ve been particularly moved by a Wordsworth poem; or that my favorite movie is not a cerebral film festival hit, but What About Bob. I would watch the Office over and over again, and I think Seinfield is brilliant, this doesn’t come across quite as impressive as when I list my favorite poets. It could be that comedians and poets are no more related than the sky and the sea, and I’m only trying to reconcile two aspects of how I understand the world, but I don’t think so. For just as the sea is colored by the sky, I think poetry and comedy are entwined in their own way, or they ought to be if we hope to see the world rightly. 

What makes poets so good at their craft is not merely their mastery of language, but their unique ability to see. A good comedian has this same gift of sight. They take note of the daily incongruities that we have all grown accustomed to. Often these things are at our expense, but if we are humble and honest with ourselves, we will laugh, because we know it’s true. It may even inspire us to change. If we take ourselves too seriously, if we suffer from pride, we will be offended. Just as good poetry calls attention to that which should make us glory, good comedy calls attention to that which should humble us. 

Not all that we call comedy functions humbly, however. In the same way that there are poems that do not draw us to glory, but drag us to shame, there are comedians, or types of humor that do not do justice to the craft. The ancients believed that humor was a vice because it was a result of feeling superior, you laughed at someone else’s misfortune. Perhaps Aristotle theorized this because that’s the only humor he knew. I’d suggest this isn’t humor, but something we liken to it because they both share the commonality of laughter. We often mistake laughter for humor. While humor does sometimes lead to laughter (though not always, something can strike us as funny, and we do not actively laugh), the two are not the same. Laughing at someone’s misfortune is a form of cruelty, often a show of power, but not because anything is truly humorous. Much like the theory of release: we may laugh to release anxiety or overcome our awkwardness, like laughing inappropriately at a funeral. It isn’t because anything is particularly funny, it’s just a physical reaction to release tension.

But humor, or comedy, is something distinct from laughter. The incongruity theory seems to me to be the most plausible. In the incongruity theory, what makes something humorous is the identification of incongruities. Humor notices. It observes when what you say is at odds with what you do, it takes note how speech differs from person to person, it discerns hypocrisy, when things aren’t as they seem, and then it makes us look at them. Good humor instills a kind of humility in those who enjoy it.

This idea of humor having eyes to see is not a novel one. It is the reason kings employed court jesters. The court jester had the occupation of humorously advising the king. Jesters were the keen observers of the court whom the king could always trust would tell him the truth when all others resorted to flattery. Compelling examples of this appear in Shakespeare’s plays, As You Like It, in the character Touchstone; and Twelfth Night, in the character Feste; but most notably in the unnamed fool in King Lear. King Lear is an arrogant king, he will listen only to those who fawn over him. His fool continues to give him clever, yet severe warnings. These do produce some self-reflection on Lear’s part, but not enough. Finally, the fool has had enough of the king’s foolishness and sorrowfully departs his company. Shakespeare times the departure of the fool with Lear’s own departure from sanity. The fool it seems, was his last link to reality. 

Fools, jesters, comedians, whatever you want to call them, these people who are keen observers of humanity and who laughingly force us to look upon the incongruities of reality, they are a necessary component to our collective sanity. Humor is a link to truth.

This is why our culture’s trend toward extreme censorship and quick offense should concern us. Our inability to laugh at ourselves is not a sign of sensitivity, but pride; and it places us as a culture not nearer to compassion, but insanity. We need to better appreciate the kind of people who can look at life and show us how embarrassingly inconsistent we are, how absurd we look as we preen and flatter ourselves, how feeble our goodness is, how blind we are.

 Poets can point us to glory so we can praise the one to whom all glory serves, perhaps helping us toward praise. Comedians can help bring us low so we see that we are not all that we pretend ourselves to be, perhaps helping us toward repentance.