Witz

Contemporary Witz

In contemporary German, Witz is a short, humorous, and fictional prose narrative that ends with a laughter-triggering punch line (in German, Pointe). Sometimes a stricter definition, which includes additional features such as orality, anonymity of the author, or the use of present tense, is used to narrow down the genre. In addition, the way in which it is differentiated from other humorous short forms such as anecdote, aphorism, fabliau, farce, riddle, or sketch may also be defined differently.

It is difficult to determine the role of Witz in relation to the general historical development of jokes. German jokes tend to be differentiated either in terms of the particular ethnic or social group that produced them (e.g., jüdische Witz, or Jewish joke), or the ethnic groups that have been the butt of them (e.g., jokes about people from East Friesland [Ost-Friesenwitz] or jokes about Jewish people [Judenwitz]). It is also difficult to say anything about Witz in the context of the totalitarian political system of the Third Reich or the socialist regime of the former German Democratic Republic as [Page 795]relatively few serious studies have been conducted in this area.

In Germany, the study of jokes, respectively Witze, began in disciplines such as philosophy and psychology, but since the 1970s, other disciplines such as linguistics and literary studies have found this an area of interest (although research in literary studies is strongly influenced by older concepts of Witz). Initially, the German tradition of joke studies was marked by an interest in ordering jokes according to their diverse typologies. The most prominent joke typology was proposed by Sigmund Freud’s 1905 Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewuβten (The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious). Freud’s identification of joke techniques (e.g., verdichtung [condensation], doppelsinn [double meaning]) was partly derived from linguistic observation, partly from his psychoanalytic Interpretation of Dreams (1899). Besides typological issues, there has also been a continuous interest in the internal structure of jokes. For instance, the Dutch-German scholar André Jolles hypothesized in his 1929 study Einfache Formen (Simple Form) that a particular spirit or mental attitude will manifest in a particular literary form, and that the process of “untying” conventional mental connections will ultimately materialize in jokes.

History of the Word and Concept

The contemporary meaning of Witz as the German name for the text type joke came to the fore during the 19th century. However, due to the word’s complex etymological history, Witz also represents an important aesthetic concept.

In Old German, wizzi referred to the domain of knowledge, reason, and wisdom. This ancient meaning of Witz has—with the exception of a few derivations such as Mutterwitz (“mother wit”)— disappeared from contemporary German usage.

During the 17th century, the concept of Witz was influenced by a philosophical and poetical debate sparked by the French essayist Dominique Bouhours’s (1962/1671) assertion that a German bel esprit was a rare thing (p. 223). In the ensuing prominent (and frequently nationalistic) debate, esprit was frequently translated as Witz, as a particular talent for producing witty expressions. The debate, in which German scholars drew on the British concept of wit, respectively “true wit” and “false wit” to support their arguments, and during which the meaning of Witz came to be increasingly associated with French esprit and English wit, also touched on aesthetic issues such as what constituted the best kind of Witz and how it could be appropriately employed in literature.

...