Paradossalità e de-estraniamento. Sui meccanismi terapeutici dell’umorismo letterario

Paradox and dis-estrangement. Considerations on literary humor as therapeutic device · Literary humor surfaces when different and not uncommon stimulus/answer mechanisms rely specifically on the interaction between A – the form and style of a text – and B – the cognitive and emotional response it triggers (Salmon 2018). True to Pirandello’s perceptive theory (1908), the connection between A and B reveals the stark opposition between the comic (as stereotyped rhetorical banter) and humor, the subversive feeling of the contrary. This essay contends that paradoxical humor – in Pirandello’s words, the ‘rare and exceptional expression of the nation’ (1995) – also has actual therapeutic virtues. These pages explore and illustrate the correlation between the forms of literary paradox and a humorous perception of dis-estrangement – i.e. the way in which what is foreign becomes familiar –, a dimension diametrically opposed to the Freudian idea of uncanniness (Unheimliche) that could be defined as Umfremde (un-foreign). The recurrent emotional experience of skepticism generated by the humorous paradox triggers in turn positive cognitive changes (see indeed the change described by Watzlawick in 1995). While the comic reinforces reactionary and binary partisanship, thus increasing the distance between subject and Other, skeptical humor on another hand has a disruptive effect and triggers a subversive psycho-cognitive reaction eventually leading to the recognition of the self in the Other.