Book, Freud V.07 (1905) The Joke and Its Relation To the unconscious[LS]

Language: Brazilian Portuguese. In the 1890s, Freud collected several jokes by Jews, and it was based primarily on this collection that he wrote Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, his greatest contribution to the study of aesthetics. The book investigates the unconscious sources of the pleasure we feel with witticisms, jokes, puns, etc.. The main characteristic of a joke is not found in its content, but in its technique: thought is condensed through a modified word, as when a poor wretch says: "Rothschild treated me as an equal, in a very 'familionary' way" (joining "familiar" and "millionaire")". Similar processes occur in dreams, but, unlike these, jokes require an audience, they have a social function. They generate an "economy of psychic expenditure", by allowing us to derive pleasure from repressed matters. While playing, we can say the most serious things.