Humor and the Metadiscourse of Control in the Comedia

Ted L. L. Bergman California State University, Fresno HO GETS TO DETERMINE what is funny in the comedia? The answers to this question are varied and will prompt many more questions before even an initially satisfactory answer can be given to the rst one. In order to avoid getting lost in a general exploration of the nature of humor in the comedia, it seems necessary to arbitrarily pick a starting point for a line of investigation, eschewing other lines for the time being. Factors such as societal norms, circumstances of performance, even the weather, can be as important, if not more so, than the text itself in determining its humorous nature. On the other hand, there are moments when a comedia critic may simply examine a joke, especially a verbal one, while temporarily leaving aside information that comes from beyond the characters themselves. We will use the discussion of humor among characters as a starting point, and examine the debate through the use of two principle theories regarding language and humor to help illuminate the process as a whole. Ultimately the goal is to demonstrate that the question of Who gets to determine what is funny? is really a question of Who is in control? The rst theoretical construct to aid in our investigation relates to the notion of language-games and metadiscourse. I am indebted to Catherine Larsons related studies for introducing me to the use of the these notions as means of studying the comedia. Larson is greatly inuenced by Keir Elam, whence the term metadiscourse in the context of studying theater. Elam is a Shakespearean scholar who employs the philosopher Ludwig Wittgensteins idea of language-games in order to explain how metadiscourse can be framed and thus more easily understood. Wittgenstein writes in his Philosophical Investigations I that there is nothing common to all languagegames, though they may have similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that ... (27) and asks at one point: And is there not also the case were we play andmake up the rules as we go along? (33). Paradoxically and usefully, comments like these allow Elam, Larson, and now myself to take advantage of the rather exible notion of language-game as a sort of ordering principle. In this case, the languagegame in question will be that of telling jokes and responding to them, assuming that jokes themselves can form their own language.

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Before going any further, it may be worthwhile to briey look at speech act theory as it relates to language-games, and see that particular difculties crop up when trying to nd an analogue of doing things with words in doing things with jokes. Unfortunately, there is very little mention of joking in foundational speech act theory. J. L. Austin himself was quite suspicious of including jokes within any philosophical scheme concerning the speech acts most important toindeed, coined byhim. He writes: We may speak of the use of language for something, e.g., for joking. ... These references to use of language have nothing to do with the illocutionary act. ... There are parasitic uses of language, which are not serious, not the full normal use. The normal conditions of reference may be suspended, or no attempt made at a standard perlocutionary act, no attempt to make you do anything. (104) Of course, one could argue that joking is a perlocutionary act, if effect is an essential ingredient, by afrming that its desired effect is getting the audience to laugh. However, from the perspective of speech act theory, one would need to list the conditions necessary for this effect to be realized. Doing this would require a generalized theory of humor and its effects, something for which there is insufcient space to explore here. Despite Austins protests to the contrary, while it may also be possible to argue that jokes are illocutionary acts, the question of conditions still arises. Indeed, the principles behind speech act theory demand that we carefully examine conditions. As jokes are not purely constative, they cannot be described in terms of true or false, and we would need to follow Austins lead and determine what is required for a joke not to yield a result of infelicity (18). What are the conditions (or rules) for both joke-teller and audience alike? I have chosen Wittgensteins notion of language-games as a guiding principle because of its appealing looseness, in which the existence of rules is acknowledged, but relatively (compared to Austin) little effort is made to sort them out in detail. One is reminded of speech act theory when reading Wittgensteins original example of primitive language, where a builder commands his assistant by naming different sorts of stones (3), but it is also worth noting that Austin admits no debt to Wittgenstein. Austins most famous follower, John R. Searle, who does refer to Wittgenstein now and then, seeks to expand upon his predecessors initial observations, and correct one of the most persistent mistakes in the history of Western philosophy (122) along the way. Nevertheless, in Searles deep and wide examination of speech acts, there are few observations that one can easily connect to joking. Stating the conditions for the performance of a particular illocutionary act and detailing the necessary input and output, Searle writes that he will ignore elliptical turns of phrase, hints, metaphors, etc. (55). Furthermore, Searles input and output, which for a comedia scholar

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are analogous to examples taken from plays, cover the large and indenite range of conditions under which any kind of serious and literal linguistic communication is possible (57). Until it can be rmly established that jokes lie within the domain of serious and literal linguistic communication, I feel that it is best to employ the more exible constructs of metadiscourse and language-games instead. Beyond these, we must also consider the notion of controlling discourse in the context of humor, and the possibility that language-games may have an agonistic component. Indeed, Jean-Franois Lyotard has insisted that in the context of language-games to speak is to ght, although [t]his does not necessarily mean that one plays in order to win. Even so, Lyotard concedes that the idea of winning cannot be eliminated from the equation: A move can be made for the sheer pleasure of its invention: what else is involved in that labor of language harassment undertaken by popular speech and by literature? Great joy is had in the endless invention of turns of phrase, of words and meanings, the process behind the evolution of language on the level of parole. But undoubtedly even this pleasure depends on a feeling of success won at the expense of an adversaryat least one adversary, and a formidable one: the accepted language, or connotation. (10) This assertion coincides with University of Georgias speech communication professor Charles Gruners book The Game of Humor, in which the author sums up his life-long study of humor wit, and laughter (1) with the following thesis, really a corollary on the superiority theory of humor: enjoyment of successful humor, like enjoying success in sports and games (including the games of life), must include winning (getting what we want), and sudden perception of that winning (9). While Wittgenstein would probably not have agreed upon the importance of perception (33), and perhaps would have insisted that his language-games are infrequently about winning or losing, in the context of humor, we may lend more credence to Lyotards interpretation of Wittgenstein. Keeping in mind Lyotards use of the word pleasure and Gruners enjoyment, we can more easily discover what Susan Purdie adds to the idea: Joking is valued most obviously because laughter feels pleasurable and is associated with release from external and internal [note alternate spelling] restraints. I shall suggest that this increase is only half the storythat funniness involves at once breaking rules and marking that break, so that correct behaviour is implicitly instated; yet in transgressing and recognizing the rules, jokers take power over rather than merely submitting to them. (3)

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Here, Purdie is referring to rules in the Lacanian sense of Symbolic Law, and not in the Wittgensteinian language-game sense. While she distances her own theory of humor from that of Freud (6), she still retains some of Lacans teachers ideas about humor as a form of aggression (8). For the purposes of this essay, however, I will mostly be using the abstracted idea of joke tellers as masters of discourse (5). Though it will be necessary to cite some psychological terms (such as taboo and transgression) this investigation mostly seeks ways to better understand the discussions about humor within the comedia, the metadiscourse of humor, rather than study the effects of humor itself. Summing up the combined use of the two theoretical constructs mentioned above, the implicit discussion of the nature of humor (a metadiscourse) in the comedia can be seen as a discussion about the struggle for control over discourse itself, and this struggle for control can be framed as an agonistic language-game, as detailed by Lyotard. While at times the use of this combination may seem to contradict Wittgenstein, and subsequently Elam and Larson to some degree, it is still helpful in describing what is happening in the comedia. Before citing the rst example taken directly from a comedia, it may be useful to very briey look at how one early modern theoretician tackled he question of what is funny. In Luis de Milns El Cortesano: libro de motes de damas y caballeros (rst published in 1561), an imitation of Castigliones treatise with a similar title, the aforementioned damas y caballeros enter a brief and witty discussion about risa de perro (Miln 1: 184). The Diccionario de Autoridades states that perro can metaphorically refer to someone worthy of scorn or disdain, but for the terms exact use, we must go to Baltasar Gracins El Criticn, specically the Crisi Quinta of the Segunda Parte. Here, he describes a mass of human-animal hybrids, some who let forth risa de perro ... mostrando entonces los dientes (Gracin 251). Thus the risa de perro can be interpreted as a sort of unrestrained laughter and baring of teeth, with an almost animalistic quality. Returning to Luis Milns work, we see that the author, who places himself as a narrator of the book, is accused of laughing like a dog by one of the ladies present. However, another comes to his defense stating: no puede parecer don Luis Miln a lo que no parece, que no siendo perras sus cosas, haga risa de perro; mas parece a risa de corte, que risas de avisadas reprensiones (Miln 1: 184). Thus we are given a dichotomy between risa de perro and risa de corte in a courtly manual that offers instruction on the motes de damas y caballeros. Therefore we may be tempted to think that according to the rules, according to theory, that risa de perro is not for nobles. This seems quite logical, acceptable, applicable, and very much in line with what we should expect of noble characters, including damas and galanes in the Spanish comedia. Obviously, since Milns book is (among other things) an explicit treatise on wit, we are not yet at the level of metadiscourse, but there is certainly a struggle for control over discourse, as the idea of enjoyment of successful humor (Gruner) or the sheer pleasure of its invention (Lyotard) in a decorous courtly setting (where risa de perro would signal unsuccessful humor) is argued over by the two ladies present before the author in this ctionalized dispute.

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We enter the realm of metadiscourse when the term examined by both theoreticians Miln and Gracin appears in a piece of pure entertainment, namely in Alonso Jernimo Salas de Barbadillos play El gallardo Escarramn. In the following scene, the gracioso Mondego attempts to assuage his master Don Lzaros lovesickness with some jokes. Both characters comment on the success of these attempts: DON LZARO. Al n fuyste poderoso a hazerme reir coneso, que con maniesto excesso eres Mondego gracioso. Gracias a Dios que los dientes muestras y das carcaxadas seal de que estn borradas ya tus passiones dolientes. (Salas Barbadillo 231)

MONDEGO.

Apparently the erudite Luis Milns Renaissance courtly decorum concerning risa de perro does not apply to the noble Don Lzaro. On the other hand, perhaps Mondego is making an ironic joke about Don Lzaros laughter and subtly insulting Don Lzaros stature, a practice granted to graciosos from time to time. Maybe Mondego is calling Don Lzaros behavior less-than-courtly by referring to teethbaring laughter. Here, there is certainly metadiscourse related to humor, and both Don Lzaro and Mondego are winners in the sense that the adversary (as Lyotard would put it) is Don Lzaros conventional lovesickness which gets defeated by Mondegos jokes in this language-game. However, as was the case in Miln, the struggle for control over discourse is still missing. We also nd ourselves unable to apply Milns rules to the comedia characters game, something that recalls Wittgensteins observations about making up rules as we go along. Even if one were able to confront the ctional characters with Milns observations, effectively breaking the fourth wall from the other side, it is unlikely that either Don Lzaro or Mondego would concede that they had any treatise in mind when they were joking with each other. The theoretical constructs of metadiscourse and the struggle for control over discourse meet in an applied fashion when the characters in the comedia themselves begin to examine what is funny and what is not, not in dialogued treatise form, as in Miln, but in the course of ordinary conversation. Comedias, known to be selfreferential in many ways, are littered with references to the act of joking itself, even referring to the ambiguous nature of humor, while also giving cues to the audience about what should be taken as a joke and what should be taken seriously. As critics, we may assume certain rules of joking, forming our own internal treatise on the decorum of humor within the comedia, like a modern-day Luis de Miln. However, the moment we realize that there is a constant tension, reected in the metadiscourse

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on humor, regarding what is humorous and what is not, we can see that the dynamism celebrated in the comedia (from shifting gender identities to blurring the line between reality and illusion) also applies to the language-games of jokes. Jokes in the comedia are as exible and multiform (Elam 12), as Wittgensteins denition of language-games. Elam and Larson have used Wittgensteins suggested frames for different and discretely dened language-games to great advantage while studying theater. Here I propose an alternate complementary technique by focusing more on the elusive nature of both jokes and language-games, especially when the former joins with the latter, eventually using ambiguity and elusiveness for dramatic and additionally comic effect. Both Lyotard and Elam write of a move within a game. For Lyotard, A move can be made for the sheer pleasure of its invention. For Elam (citing Renaissance rhetoricians), gures termed by her as strategic movies may be persuasive doings with words (16). It should be obvious that a single joke, a pun, for example, can either be made for the sheer pleasure of invention or added (as paronomasia) to the list of Elams sub-categories (frames) for gural games (16). At the same time, the joke may t into the subcategory for semantic games, as bringing together unrelated words with identical sounds (14). This ability of jokes to elude strict categorization does not undermine the usefulness of Elams distinctions, but rather reinforces the notion that jokes are closely related to language-games as Wittgenstein loosely denes them. A further use of looseness appears if one attempts to frame the languagegame in specic contexts, as it becomes apparent that the game in operation must be distinguished from other interactions between characters which are more strictly dened in terms of rules and conditions. As seen in the examples of Miln and later Salas Barbadillo above, decorum and humor are closely related in the comedia, and they can be seen as both competing and complementary discourses. Breaking decorum can yield humorous results, and therefore control of one can yield control over the other. This fact reminds us that for all their abstraction as a philosophical and linguistic concept, language-games relate to people who are often in social situations and games can be difcult to separate from social contexts. All the same, one should not necessarily confuse breaking decorum, or offending somebodys sensibilities, with losing control of discourse in a language-game. I have borrowed Susan Purdies idea of successfully telling jokes as a mastery of discourse without including her use of Lacanian Symbolic Law, but because I bring up the subject of decorum, we may momentarily relate the classical concept with the twentieth-century ideas of taboo and transgression. According to Purdie, The funniest jokes provoke their particular Audience, at that moment, into a maximum of actual transgression, which is a matter of the particular circumstances and skill of delivery as well as the structure and content of the utterance. (36)

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Purdie concludes her chapter as follows: Whatever sense or truth a joke may conceal, however, whatever targets and taboos it allows us to attack, however many layers of effects it entails, all joking discourse can be seen to include an ab-use of language through whose exchanged marking we claim mastery of Symbolic competence. If a joke is a move in a language-game, where the object is to control discourse, breaking decorum can be a way to win. In Yerros de naturaleza y aciertos de la fortuna, a collaboration between Caldern de la Barca and Antonio Coello y Ochoa, the gracioso Tabaco keeps making rather tasteless jokes about the suicide of the dama Matilde, who died by throwing herself into a deep chasm with a river below. Tabaco tells a transgressive joke (dealing with the taboo subject of suicide) but gets a sharp response from Matildes cousin Rosaura: TABACO. Que como huevos murieron Ero y Leandro, nos cuentan las historias, l pasado por agua, estrellada ella; pero Matilde, ditongo destas dos muertes, intenta hoy morir como los dos pues en el agua se estrella. Cay desde un mirador al ro [. . .]. [. . .] Calla [cese] tu lengua y no pronuncie atrevida tan lastimosa tragedia. (Yerros de naturaleza 89)

ROSAURA.

This is a struggle for control over the discourse regarding Matildes suicide in which the struggle is metadiscursively referenced by Rosaura. If seen as merely a social interaction, Tabaco would appear to be the loser, silenced by Rosaura, but from Lyotard and Purdies point of view, the opposite is true. Even though Rosaura herself is not defeated, Tabaco remains a winner or master thanks to his transgression. A typical language-game of jokes is the one that is played between the galn and his gracioso sidekick. Primarily, the game consists of each type being contrasted with the other, and this comic contrast consequently elicits laughter from the audience. The most typical example of this game is for the gracioso to play the foilsaying/doing the oppositeof his more serious master. The game is obviously agonistic, as Lyotard would term it, and the winner in Gruners terms, or master, to follow Purdies, is the gracioso. What is not obvious is that the games do not always follow these rules,

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and the gracioso is not always in control of the discourse of laughter. It is easy to assume that nobles in the comedia are always involved with serious business and that the role of the gracioso is to provoke laughter and laugh at others; but dividing up the roles can tend to simplify, even obscure, the genres many jokes, as well as eliminate an extra source of tension that may have been a delight to early modern audiences. In the very beginning of the second act of El gallardo Escarramn, Doa Belisa says to herself that reyrme quiero innito (Salas Barbadillo 253), when she thinks of what Don Lzaro went through while he was stripped and robbed by Escarramn and his fellow rufans. Towards the end of the second act, Don Antonio, after being wrapped in a blanket in a reversal of his plans, says que es muy de risa / el caso, y reyrme quiero (271). When Escarrmn dresses after being stripped and whipped, Don Lzaro comments, Esta es ocasin de risa; / agora la arrojo toda (286). These are examples of the metadiscourse of control as it relates to humor. The gracioso, who ordinarily dominates the moments of laughter, has, on these occasions, been replaced by either nobles or a rufan. In this sense, control has been wrested away from him, while no explicit mention of this move is made. Other plays offer similar circumstances for comment. At the end of the third act of Moretos No puede ser, when Don Flix tells of the latest move in tricking his lovers brother Don Pedro, the criado Tarugo (who is the mastermind of most of the plays deceptions) cries out Jesus! Gana / Me ha dado de reir (208). Here, the roles have been entirely reversed, with the galn cracking the joke, and the gracioso laughing in return. Curiously, the metadiscourse of control, with Tarugo as a loser, even while participating in the enjoyment of successful humor, reinforces Don Pedros superior status although he supplants the role of an inferior as joker. Loose language-games and a metadiscourse of control through jokes are a perfect t for baroque theatrical sensibilities and their maximum proponent, Pedro Caldern de la Barca. While the playwright is best known for La vida es sueo, and by extension the philsophical and theological themes it contains, we must also recall his ability to dazzle audiences (and modern readers) with expertly controlled mayhem and confusion on-stage. As characters in his comedias de enredo attempt to outwit each other, adding complication upon complication, we must not ignore the use of jokes in the games that people play. In Calderns Maanas de abril y mayo, a comedia about idle and two-timing nobles in Madrid, Don Hiplito discovers that he has been tricked by his anc when he thought he had the upper hand. He excuses his behavior by explaining, quseme vengar / de que salgas desta suerte / de casa, trocando el nombre, to which doa Clara responds, O qu anciano chiste ese! (2: 292), indicating that both he and she are old hands at practical jokes. The Diccionario de Autoridades denes chiste as burla, but also as donaire, much as we dene joke in two distinct ways today. Unlike Mondego and Don Lzaro in El gallardo Escarramn, neither Doa Clara nor Don Hiplito exchange places with the gracioso as much as eliminate (however momentarily) his role altogether. As revealed in the metadiscourse of control, by declaring the tired nature of the joke, Doa Clara

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relates the language-game of the (practical) joke to who has control in the relationship between the two. There may be similar questions of control as are present in the amocriado relationship, but the typical role of the gracioso as the provocateur of laughter, even in an inversion of roles, is conspicuous in its absence. Whenever a joke appears in the comedia, there is likely the underlying (perhaps even subconscious) understanding on the part of the audience or reader that a language-game is in process. Even while this is the case, it may require some reection from the audience to designate the players, the rules, and who wins, if we follow Lyotards interpretation of Wittgenstein. In Gurdate del agua mansa, also by Caldern, the lovesick Don Juan and Don Pedro gaze longingly at the objects of their affection through a window, while their companion Don Flixobviously not a graciosodeclares: Vamos a comer, que aunque / tan enamorado est / tengo ms hambre que amor (2: 381). To ensure that everyone understands that this is a joke, Caldern injects an element of metadiscourse as the nobles respond clearly to the joker upon being shaken from their reverie: Aunque de burlas hablis, / sabed que de mi fortuna / una es la causa and Aunque tan de humor estis / por s o por no, sabed / que una de las dos, por Dios, / es la que sigo [. . .] (381). Don Flix, by cracking a joke, has attempted to seize control over the discourse regarding the groups (formed of noblemen) roles, that of suitors or pure bon vivants. If the joke is successful, then Don Flix is a winner in an agonistic language-game, where the connotations (to borrow from Lyotard) associated with galanes de comedia, and not the actual people participating in the roles, become the adversaries. While the metadiscourse of control as it relates to humor can exist without the presence of a gracioso, as a phenomenon it becomes easier to detect when this character type faces off with a galn de comedia. Nevertheless, we must understand that in terms of a language-game, while rules (especially regarding roles) do exist, Wittgensteins observation that we make up the rules as we go along can been applied in what might otherwise appear to be rigid circumstances. Those who have read or seen at least a few comedias will be familiar with the retort Calla loco! or a similar expression, which the galn uses to keep his mischievous and wisecracking servant in line. A simple way to explain Calla loco! and similar expressions is by stating that the galn represents order and dignity, while the servant/gracioso represents the opposite. Following this logic, there is a battle between the transgressor and the order gure, one promoting humor and the other working against it. Nevertheless, the supposed order gure, or foil for humor, can suddenly take an active role in making the audience laugh. The rules of the game may change, be made up as we go along, while the agonistic component and the metadiscourse of control remain constant and present. In Calderns Dar tiempo al tiempo, a comedia with many great moments of farce, the lacayo-gracioso Chacn makes one joke too many at the expense of his master Don Juan. The perturbed gentleman shouts back, [. . .] Necio ests, / no me obligues a que haga / un disparate [. . .] (507), thus effectively saying Thats not funny and Dont make me do something crazy at the same time. This is a complex

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metadiscourse because it comments on the nature of humor as it relates to decorum, but it also comments on who has control of the social situation in terms of who is allowed to perform disparates, which, unless there is literal insanity on-stage, most likely refer to comical acts that break decorum. In an attempt to change the rules/ roles of the game, without exiting the game itself, Don Juan threatens to perform some unreasonable and possibly ridiculous action that might be considered below his station as a galn de comedia. In the end, Don Juan cannot contain himself any longer, and he pushes Chacn into a mud puddle. It is difcult to conclude that Don Juan is a winner in the battle of wits against his gracioso sidekick, but this is not relevant when the exchange is seen as a language-game. Whether the battle is won or lost is independent of the struggle for control of discourse that goes on between the two characters. As previously mentioned, it is the discourse of humor that is being controlled, and it is Don Juan that controls it. We may never know if the audience laughed at the galn pushing his lacayo into a puddle, but there remains a metadiscursive message informing the audience that new control of the status of joker had been achieved, a surprising development that may itself have been considered humorous. Metadiscourse for control in the form of language-games need not always have a humorous result. In some cases, metadiscourse may trump the discourse of humor itself, effectively killing any joke, while the struggle for control and the subject of the discourse remain present. At the end of El mdico de su honra, before the nal bloody unveiling of Doa Mencas murdered corpse, the gracioso Coqun pleads before the king: [. . .] Aunque me mates, habindote conocido, o seor, tengo de hablarte [......................................] que aunque hombre me consideras de burlas, con loco humor, llegando a veras, seor, soy hombre de muchas veras. (205) When the gracioso, supposedly the funniest of all the characters, indicates that the time for joking has come to an end, the tone must be very somber indeed. The control remains in his hands, while the humor is gone. One can trace the struggle for control of discourse in the statements made by Coqun and his adversary, King Pedro, throughout the play. Initially, the king asks him what he does for a living. After he learns that Coquns job is hacer rer, King Pedro (el cruel, among his monikers) explains that he will have all of Coquns teeth ripped out if the gracioso cannot make the king laugh within a month. Despite Coquns apparent nervousness and belief that he will quedar lisiado, he still manages to reect upon what it means to laugh and ensear los dientes, in effect joking about his predicament. The joke is also a

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metadiscursive reference to the agonistic language-game at play. Yet one should not confuse the challenge offered by the king, an obvious battle of wits, with the languagegame itself, because Coqun has established his role as joker before the challenge, and this role changes. In the game, Coquns entire capacity to control discourse through his jokes, his transgressions, is at stake. The entire existence of the game is threatened, and the king is aided in his attempted extirpation through Don Gutierres murderous actions at the end of the play. Nevertheless, while the original overt challenge remains unresolved in the nal moments, Coqun continues to be metadiscursively in control, as the king thanks him for the terrible news: REY: Con qu he de poder pagarte tal piedad? Con darme aprisa libre, sin ms accidentes, de la accin contra mis dientes. No es ahora tiempo de risa. Cundo lo fue? (206)

COQUN:

REY: COQUN:

While the king appears to be in control of the social situation, he is in no more control of the discourse of humor than at any other point in the plot. Coquns question of Cundo lo fue? is rhetorical, and reinforces his previous declaration as an hombre de muchas veras. He will have the nal move in this game, determining what is funny and what is not. In a play such as El mdico de su honra, this contrast between control and its lack is only appropriate, as the entire work is fraught with confusing and tense moments, fully imbued with a sense of paranoia causing and caused by the reckless behavior of the protagonist Don Gutierre and the king himself. Thus far, we have seen examples of metadiscursive references that, by way of jokes, represent a struggle for control over discourse. Also in these examples, regardless of whether or not discourse could be successfully controlled through jokes, the means of control is never in dispute, thanks to the comedia characters references to the jokes, successful or not. Humor thrives on ambiguity, but there are times when this ambiguity leads to doubt or confusion about whether a joke is being told at all. If the joke is a language-game, then, as Wittgenstein writes: Asking [a question] . . . outside a particular language-game is like what a boy once did, who had to say whether the verbs in certain sentences were in the active or passive voice, and who racked his brains over the question whether the verb to sleep meant something active or passive. (19)

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In other words, in the comedia, there are times when a character must ask a question outside of a language-game, another form of metadiscourse, before the game for control of discourse can proceed. It appears that the playwrights of the time were instinctively aware of the entertaining nature of this type of break up of the game, and found it a rather useful device for entertaining their audiences. Aside from adding suspense or surprise, the question Are you joking? is a statement equally useful as Thats funny or Thats not funny in establishing a tone for a particular scene or rounding out characters who would otherwise seem one dimensional or of a single dramatic purpose. In El valiente Campuzano, by Fernando Zrate (n Antonio Enrquez Gmez), the protagonist must run from la justicia after killing a few people, including an alguacil and escribano. Nevertheless, he wants to return to Granada in order to interrupt the wedding of his sister. The ordinarily jovial lackey Pimiento asks: Seor Campuzano, es burla? / Parece que nos da soga (Zrate 578). Pimiento is saying, Sir, youve got to be kidding! while including an untranslatable pun on dar soga, which can mean to play a joke or literally give someone rope, in this case implying the hangmans noose. In contrast to Pimientos dark humor, Campuzano is deadly serious about his intentions, thus emphasizing that his plan is the purest of folly. That is because even the plays gracioso, surely an expert in the burla, cannot conceive of something as foolish as his masters designs and thus misinterprets them as a joke, albeit dark in nature. If Pimientos words are interpreted without irony, this is an interruptionwith specic dramatic effectof the game. On the other hand, if Pimientos words are ironic, and simply meant to emphasize his stock gracioso trait of cowardice, then the game continues, and Pimiento maintains control of the discourse by using his cowardice as a comic foil against Campuzanos bravado. As in previous cases, the game works independently of who wins the argument, as the argument is not the discourse itself. Pimiento can still be a winner, a master of discourse, through sufcient transgression, to use Purdies terms, or victor over the formidable adversary of accepted language or connotation, to use Lyotards expression regarding agonistic language-games, even if he loses the argument with his master. As scholars of the comedia, we are effectively asking questions outside of the language-game, one of which may be our initial question: Who gets to determine what is funny in the comedia? The confusion about whether something is funny can be found within the text and without. In a performative setting, the audience may be the nal arbiter on humor, although opinions among the audience members may vary, and no nal judgment need be made. In the context of one scholar sitting alone with a book, it is a matter of the scholars discretion. Though he or she is informed by all manner of sources and inuences, the determination is ultimately his or hers. Thus, the control of discourse can extend to critical endeavors as well, not by making jokes, but by studying them and making a determination. As an example, I wish to briey contrast my conclusions regarding a play with those of comedia scholar Max Oppenheimer, Jr. In simple terms, I nd the play very funny, and Oppenheimer does not. But while the funniness of the play may be disputable, I nd it difcult to

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ignore that there is an attempt to be funny, in effect a struggle for control of discourse (among other things), carried out by the plays protagonist and his collaborator. In the introduction to his 1994 translation of Calderns El astrlogo ngido, Oppenheimer includes arguments from an earlier article when referring to the burla, something that is admittedly not always associated with humor. In El astrlogo ngido, the main burla consists of the protagonist Don Diego and two friends fooling Madrid into thinking that he is an astrologer with amazing powers, a trick that leads to hilarious consequences. For Oppenheimer, the only positive aspect of the burla is the fun it creates for its puppet master, while everyone else is left frustrated, including the trickster at times. Nowhere is laughter mentioned by the critic. Instead, expressions like let-down, disappointment, unfullled hopes and wishes (El astrlogo ngido 16), isolated from reality, victims, mental pressure, nervous and tormented, suffers from the strain, painful limits, uneasiness, agonizing (18) are used to describe the play, making the whole comedia seem like a painful experience itself. There is a consequence of Oppenheimers not mentioning laughter, or Don Antonio, one of Don Diegos fellow jokers. If we conceptualize jokes as language-games that operate as a metadiscourse of control, we see that the control exercised by Don Antonio and Don Diego is not limited to being puppet masters who dupe their surrounding peers, but extends to the use of humor to control the discourse of the entire play itself. How can we conclude this? We simply follow the previous examples and see how the characters conversations reveal a metadiscourse of control. Like a gracioso in spirit, albeit not in social status, the socarrn or smart-aleck Don Antonio is playful and mischievous, and he enjoys a good laugh. When he tells Don Diego how he met a man who claimed to know the astrologer personally and told of his many astounding feats, Don Antonio says, No s, por Dios, cmo resisto la risa (138). In another scene, Don Diego had explained to the dama Doa Violante that he could not transport the suitor Don Juan through the air from Flanders because it was overseas. However, Doa Violante later responds that Don Juan is in Zaragoza instead, and that it should offer no difculty, thus leaving Don Diego in a bind. When they recall the situation, Don Diego says to his friend Don Antonio, Y habs visto otro suceso / ms gracioso? Don Antonio chuckles, answering: [. . .] Yo os coneso que ya perdido me vi de risa, cuando os cogi en lo del mar [. . .] (150) Lastly, when Doa Violante starts to question Don Diegos ability as an astrologer, and he nds himself in deeper water than ever, Don Antonio mentions the damas latest visit: [. . .] Por Dios que si viene a consultaros, que viene a buena ocasin. Id astrlogo, que os llaman. (155)

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The now exasperated astrologer responds, Dejad de burlas. For Don Antonio, every lance, every plot complication offers a reason to laugh. Following the examples cited above from other works, we see, thanks to Don Antonios reactions and comments, how Don Diego is rmly in control of deciding what is funny and what is not. It seems quite likely that the audience was being asked to also follow the jocular noblemans lead and laugh, or not, accordingly. It seems unlikely that the members of the public were meant to feel any anxiety from watching El astrlogo ngido. Oppenheimer is correct in pointing out Calderns use of a realidad oscilante, but strain, agony, and unease may not be part of the equation. In the play, there is not a single sword-ght, not a single hint of danger. Honor, that most serious of subjects, is only briey mentioned at the beginning, and by the end of the rst act it has become a joke unto itself (138). My interpretation is only made possible by the presence of Don Antonio, a necessary ingredient, as at least two people are necessary for metadiscursive references to be made. Don Antonio is kind enough to explain jokes in an indirect manner, not holding forth on the nature of humor like the characters in Luis Milns treatise, but instead making brief comments to allow the audience to know who is in control. It is well known that the comedias form a genre that thrives on self reference, and that jokes (especially those of the gracioso, as Claire Pailler has demonstrated) are a part of this phenomenon. I hope to have shown that when jokes are involved, the struggle for control of discourse is ever present, in the form of language-games, and that whoever wins or loses these games (again citing Lyotards interpretation of the games as agonistic) can be independent of the stock types of each character, whether we nd the joke funny or not. By seeing jokes as this type of struggle for control, we have yet another tool to assist in the study and enjoyment of humor in the theater of early modern Spain.

Works Cited
Austin, J. L. How To Do Things with Words. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1962. Caldern de la Barca, Pedro. El astrlogo ngido/Pedro Caldern de la Barcas The Fake Astrologer. Trans. and ed. Max Oppenheimer, Jr. New York: Peter Lang, 1994. . Dar tiempo al tiempo. Comedias de Pedro Caldern de la Barca. Ed. Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch. 4 vols. Biblioteca de Autores Espaoles 12. Madrid: Atlas, 1945. 2: 507-30. . Gurdate del agua mansa. Comedias de Pedro Caldern de la Barca. Ed. Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch. 4 vols. Biblioteca de Autores Espaoles 9. Madrid: Atlas, 1945. 2: 377-400. . Maanas de abril y mayo. Comedias de Pedro Caldern de la Barca. Ed. Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch. 4 vols. Biblioteca de Autores Espaoles 9. Madrid: Atlas, 1945. 2: 277-94. . El mdico de su honra. Ed. D. W. Cruickshank. Madrid: Castalia, 1989. Caldern de la Barca, Pedro, and Antonio Coello y Ochoa. Yerros de naturaleza y aciertos de la fortuna. Madrid: Hernando, 1930. Cotarelo y Mori, Emiliano. Coleccin de entremeses, loas, bailes, jcaras y mojigangas desde nes del siglo XVI a mediados del siglo XVIII. Nueva Biblioteca de Autores Espaoles 17. Madrid: Bailly-Ballire, 1911. Diccionario de autoridades. Edicin facsmil. Madrid: Gredos, 1963. Elam, Keir. Shakespeares Universe of Discourse: Language-Games in the Comedies, London: Cambridge UP, 1984.

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Freud, Sigmund. Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious. Trans. James Strachey. New York: Norton, 1960. Gracin, Baltasar. El Criticn. Ed. Antonio Prieto. Barcelona: Planeta, 1992. Gruner, Charles R. The Game of Humor: A Comprehensive Theory of Why We Laugh. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1997. Larson, Catherine. Language Games in the Theater: The Case of El Caballero de Olmedo. Language and the Comedia: Theory and Practice. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 1991. 78-93. . Metatheater and the Comedia: Past, Present, and Future. The Golden Age Comedia: Text, Theory, and Performance. Ed. Charles Ganelin and Howard Mancing. Lafayette: Purdue UP, 1994. 204-21. Lyotard, Jean-Franois. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1984. Miln, Luis. El cortesano. 2 vols. Valencia: Universitat de Valncia, 2001. Moreto y Cabaa, Agustn. No puede ser. Comedias escogidas de don Agustn Moreto y Cabaa. Ed. Luis Fernndez-Guerra y Orbe. Biblioteca de Autores Espaoles 39. Madrid: Atlas, 1945. Pailler, Claire. El gracioso y los guios de Caldern: Apuntes sobre autoburla e irona crtica. Risa y sociedad en el teatro espaol del Siglo de Oro. Ed. Groupe dtudes sur le thtre espagnol. Paris: Centre Nat. de la Recherche Scientique, 1980. 33-48. Purdie, Susan. Comedy: the Mastery of Discourse. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1993. Salas Barbadillo, Alonso Gernimo de. El subtil cordovs Pedro de Urdemalas y El gallardo Escarramn. Ed. Marcel Charles Andrade. Chapel Hill: Dept. of Romance Languages, U of North Carolina P, 1974. Searle, John R. Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. London: Cambridge UP, 1969. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Trans. G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001. Zrate, Fernando de. El valiente Campuzano. Dramticos posteriores a Lope de Vega. Ed. Ramn de Mesonero y Romanos. 2 vols. Biblioteca de Autores Espaoles 47. Madrid: M. Rivadeneyra, 1858-59. 1: 569-86.

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