Witticism

In this essay, I intend to investigate some aspects relating to the emulation of the ancient poets and the production of wit in the poetry of the 16th century, considering a specific reading of Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis, published for the first time in London, in 1593. In this poem, the emulation of a passage from Ovid’s Metamorphoses is explicit, and defines the place of authority from which diverse rhetorical techniques of amplifying the topics of invention and elocution will be employed in order to produce the poem’s wit. Thus, I intend to discuss how the novelties of subject and poetical style are legitimized, at the same time that the relations of belonging to the ancient authority are rhetorically preserved. In order to do so, I propose to examine, beforehand, a prescriptive text of the time – Francis Meres’ Comparatiue Discourse – so as to investigate how the association of the “new” poets to the ancient authorities is being operated.
KEYWORDS: Rhetoric. 16th century poetics. Emulation. Shakespeare. Venus and Adonis.

When discussing humour and Wittgenstein, scholars have usually taken as a point of departure a conversation he had with Norman Malcolm in which he said that a serious and philosophical work could be written that would consist entirely of jokes. Suppositions and presuppositions are also part of the grammar that regulates the use of words and sentences of different language-games. Many of the extravagant, unruly and reckless behaviours of comedians can be seen as an attack not only on the rules of etiquette and morality, but as a challenge to authority. Language-games, as many other games, are not completely determined by rules. The use of words is unregulated and the game people play with them is unregulated. Comedians can act as triflers, cheats and spoilsports, but of course they are something else. Some of the best performances can be seen when comedians represent the difficulties someone has when they try but fail to take part in a practice.

Neste artigo, proponho investigar alguns aspectos da relacao entre a emulacao dos antigos e a producao da agudeza em Venus e Adonis, de Shakespeare, publicado pela primeira vez em 1593, em Londres. Nesse poema narrativo, a emulacao de uma passagem das Metamorfoses de Ovidio e explicita e marca o lugar de autoridade a partir do qual diversas tecnicas retorico-poeticas de amplificacao do topico inventivo e elocutivo serao empregadas para efetuar a agudeza do poema. Assim, proponho discutir como se legitimam as novidades de materia e estilo poetico em Venus e Adonis ao mesmo tempo em que se preservam, retoricamente, as relacoes de pertencimento a autoridade antiga imitada. Para esse proposito, refiro-me a um texto preceptivo da epoca, o Discurso comparativo, de Francis Meres, para discutir como se realiza a operacao de associacao dos “novos” poetas a autoridades antigas.

‘You cut life to pieces with your epigrams’, says Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Gray to Lord Henry. His statement is itself an adept epigram, encapsulating a particular kind of aphoristic writing which is pointed and authoritative, yet retains a hint of frivolity. Although aphoristic and epigrammatic writing hails from antiquity and has always been a diverse and popular literary genre, the final years of the Victorian era saw a surge in the popularity of the aphorism. As the rhythms of life and industry accelerated, along with the consumption of information, aesthetic fashions followed suit, and the aphorism came to encapsulate the condensation, spontaneity and fragmentation of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century modernity. As Henry James’ epigrammatic assessment of the Victorian novel implied, ‘loose, baggy monsters’ were out, economy of language was in, and the art of aphorism was revivified.

Along with its subgenera, such as the epigram, the witticism, and the apophthegm, the aphorism expresses the kernel of a truth in surprising ways, while playfully destabilising it––a duality embodied by Friedrich Nietzsche’s Human, All Too Human (1878), one of the first modern works to undermine the systematised nature of western philosophical thought by employing aphoristic writing. On a more quotidian level, with advances in modern media drawing the cult of celebrity into the literary world, modern and modernist writers became celebrated for their bon mots. Accordingly, the nimble one-liner popularised by Wilde and Mark Twain was taken up and turned to different purposes by later public figures such as G.K. Chesterton, Winston Churchill, T.S. Eliot, and Dorothy Parker. As this diverse company suggests, the aphorism can assume as many styles and modes as possible themes, while its airtight economy squeezes and condenses meaning rather than whittling it. Like a quaint contraption ingrained with cryptic clues that slowly spool out meaning, the modern aphorism is ‘neither a truism on the one hand, nor a riddle on the other’, as the late-Victorian journalist, John Morley put it.