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When an analyst writes a book entitled Beyond Laughter, the reader
mentally adds a subtitle, 'Or Beyond Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious'. Dr. Grotjahn's first chapter is a condensation of Freud's classic work, and the following chapters paraphrase the elaborations of Freud's ideas by his disciples, including the author himself. The subjects are the sense of humor, its connections with psychosomatic illness, with optimism or pessimism, its part in character formation, and its variations with sex; the smile as the badge of humanity and the signal of human communication; the anality of laughter, the concurrent acquisition of speech, and a store of jokes. From these generalities the author turns to such specific phenomena as clowns, burlesque queens, circuses, mystery stories and 'westerns', Alice in Wonderland, Ferdinand the Bull, the cartoon idol, Mickey Mouse, and the soldiers' character, Kilroy. In so doing, he explains the sense of the uncanny, artistic creativity, sensational pleasures, and the clinical significance of laughter in psychoanalysis.
However highly we esteem Freud's work on wit, it would be unjust to consider this book merely as its elaboration. The key to its importance lies in the opening words of Chapter Seven: 'Man has just begun to find the answer to some of the problems of survival, he must now tackle the problems of prosperity'. Psychological patterns change so little that Freud turned to the ancient Greek myths for a term to describe his great discovery, the Oedipus complex. The present author explores the methods for lessening psychic tension—regressions to, or repetitions of, infantility or a mature integration of id and reality—in terms of contemporary life.
These two presentations, one published in 1957, the other in 1905, demand comparison. Strikingly, they demonstrate how times have changed. Studying both, the reader finds himself picturing the cautious progress of a pioneer through uncharted and possibly dangerous terr