Wit and Conversation

What, first of all, is wit?

Included among Webster's definitions: The ability to make lively, clever remarks in a sharp, amusing way.

And again, in the old Collegiate version: Wit suggests the power to evoke laughter by remarks showing verbal felicity or ingenuity and swift perception especially of the incongruous.

Here's Lord Chesterfield on wit:

Ready wit may create many admirers, but take my word for it, it makes few friends. It shines and dazzles like the noon-day sun, but, like that too, is very apt to scorch, and therefore is always feared...Never seek for wit; if it presents itself, well and good; but even in that case let your judgement interpose, and take care that it be not at the expense of anybody.

And again:

If God gives you wit, which I am not sure that I wish you, unless he gives you at the same time an equal portion at least of judgement to keep it in good order, wear it like your sword in the scabbard, and do not brandish it to the terror of the whole company...Wit is so shining a quality that everybody admires it, most people aim at it, all people fear it, and few love it, unless in themselves.

There is a reason wit is likened to swords, because it can be wielded as a weapon. It, like fencing, requires speed, the skill of instant assessment: the fencer of the opponent's defense and offense, the wit not just of the target but of the listeners. The fencer as well as the wit has style, that is, does not bludgeon the opponent but skewers neatly, often with grace. Wit, as well as a good sword match, can be a pleasure to watch--so long as one is not the target. But of course for another wit, there is pleasure in the challenge, of the match of skill.

Some maintain that wit is the province of the upper class. I don't think so. Upper class wit is the province of the upper class. Now, if the beholder admires what he or she acknowledges as the upper class, that is, something above one that one aspires to, then one emulates the manners of that group--and admires its wit. But wit exists in all groups, wherever they are perceived on any given social scale. Likewise, wit can be used against those trying to climb, but it also can be used at those who assume superiority--a superiority unacknowledged by those supposedly below. Wit can be exclusionary, or inclusive. In other words, wit can be a great leveler, and it is both admired and feared because it can be wielded without physical exerition yet the impact is often likened to a grenade.

It seems to me there are many types of wit. There is punning repartee, but this is almost always verbal wit, topical in nature, and usually without wisdom or insight. It isn't memorable, unless the the context itself is memorable. A literary example of this kind of wit, which grows tiresome fast, is in the company gathered at the Rochester home in Jane Eyre. Verbal wit, we discover when reading about sixtheenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth century wits (as well as those later) was almost always topical, thus the witty comment worked at the time, the place, and in the style of its delivery. This kind of wit has been rarely written down, and except for a very few exceptions, most examples don't wear well. Verbal wit seems to have been largely exclusionary: the chuckle of the in-group at the expense of those who want to be in.

Wit in literature is not confined to cruelty at the expense of others, though there are plenty of examples of cruel wit, usually without context, that have endured. (See quotations from the Algonquin Table lunches.) Wit with insight is entertaining and illuminating, especially when the point is made against the worthy target, instead of merely the weak. When I think of modern examples, the first to my mind is Tom Wolfe. He's exceedingly witty about the follies of modern society. Oscar Wilde's plays glitter with wit at the expense of his own society's foibles. It's interesting to note, though, that a good many of his witty epigrams are predicated on shared assumptions about the differences between men and women. Some of those differences--one can be thankful--are no longer true, rendering one-time wit into mere curiosity.

What draws Mr. Darcy to Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice is her mesmerizing ability to combine wit and compassion in her conversation. Her wit is ironic at the expense of the hypocrite, the pompous, the fool. Her compassion is expended fearlessly on behalf of the defensible: the honest, the steady, loyal, loving, kind. Image, metaphor, Classical allusion, all of these are the compost that bring forth the flowering of wit.

Wit sparks off shared cultural assumptions and references--what the semioticiams call signposts. In Austen's day, the references included a heavy reliance on the classics--by which I mean Greek and Latin writers--which makes them seem impossibly erudite to modern readers. Not so at the time; all but the most superficial educational systems (and Austen satirized those, too) included this reading, and so Virgil, say, and Aristotle were as familiar then as popular TV shows are to us now

Why is wit so difficult to write?

Here is my theory. I don't think many modern writers know that wit is missing, and that is because they don't actually have their characters converse. The old art of conversation seems as rare as that Classical education. People nowadays don't often gather just to talk, either as friends or when courting--they get together and do things, whether it's watch the tube together, go to sports events together, or go shopping just to be doing something. Couples get together and do things, or spend money together, sparring for time until they can get one another into the bedroom to find out if they are really compatible. Not that couples conversed brilliantly before posting the banns in Austen's time. The various unfortunate marriages pictured in Pride and Prejudice make it clear that Austen was a sharp observer on what brought people together--and the often disastrous results. To return to writers and writing, I think the sparkling dialogue of old novels comes directly out of years of developed skill at the art of conversation. Have we lost that art these days, when most of our talk seems to be held on the run, when our leisure energy is spent as spectators rather than as participants?