У статті наголошено необхідність множинного підходу до визначення понять, пов’язаних із комічним. Окреслено три найбільш традиційні теорії комічного — вищости, невідповідности та звільнення. Проаналізовано вплив уявлень Аристотеля, Августина Блаженного та Іммануіла Канта на становлення теорій комічного.
The author stresses the necessity of multiplied approach to definition of humor and its forms. Three main traditional theories of humor are outlined. These are the superiority theoiy, the incongruity theory, and the relief theory. The superiority theory tends to root humor in the reeling of advantage one imagines towards another. In this case we laugh at the person, who is estimated as worse, than we are. The incongruity theory roots humor in the situation of totally unexpected accident.
The deception of our expectations may cause the humoristic outburst The relief theory appreciates humor as the way of the weakening of psychic tension. If we foresee danger, but it passes away, humor appears as the result of security enjoyment feeling.
The author analyzes the influence of Aristotle, Augustine the Saint, and Immanuel Kant onto the formation of these theories of humor. Since Aristotle and his Poetics till the late XVIII century the superiority theory dominated in the definitions of humor.
This theory was ethical one, and established strict rules concerning which persons or situations were to be regarded as humorous. Superiority theory’s legacies can be observed even further in the XIX-XX centuries in writings of G. WF. Hegel, A. Bergson, or Russian structuralist V Propp. On the other hand, though St. Augustine mostly relies on the superiority theory of humor, we can find out the traces of both modem theories in his writings. He distinguishes two different types ofhumor: the abusive satirical laughter and the joyful one, the first of which can be described by means of superiority theory, but the latter is better understood in the context of incongruity and relief theories.
