ABSTRACT
Anyone who has ever attempted to learn a foreign language, anyone who has attained a considerable proficiency in it, knows that the most difficult and elusive chapter of his task is the comprehension of foreign humour. There are, of course, certain things which are comic in any language and perhaps to any temperament. Jokes which are primitive and direct we can all understand, and to an Englishman who knows German pretty well, there is a certain amusement to be derived from such literary humour as the parody in German of some classic German author. But supposing that we are confronted with, say, a German parody of a French or Italian author, the difficulty is horribly complicated. We may be quite familiar with the original French or Italian, we may be fluent German scholars ; but there still remains a new effort to be made, and one that demands a peculiar agility of mind. We have got to realise not only what our French author signifies to us, but what he signifies to the average German mind ; and we often are inclined to feel that not only is the effort irksome, but that it is not worth the trouble of making.
