The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious 9780141185545

　　Building on the crucial insight that jokes use many of the same mechanisms he had already discovered in dreams, Freud developed one of the richest and most comprehensive theories of humor that has ever been produced. Jokes, he argues, provide immense pleasure by allowing us to express many of our deepest sexual, aggressive and cynical thoughts and feelings which would otherwise remain repressed. In elaborating this central thesis, he brings together a dazzling set of puns, anecdotes, snappy one-liners, spoonerisms and beloved stories of Jewish beggars and marriage-brokers. Many remain highly amusing, while others throw a vivid light on the lost world of early twentieth-century Vienna.

　　Sigmund Freud was born in 1856 and died in exile in London in 1939. As a writer and doctor he remains one of the great voices of the modern era.

Introduction by John Carey vii
Translator's Preface xxix
The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious
A Analytic Part
Ⅰ Introduction
Ⅱ The Technique of the Joke
Ⅲ The Tendencies of the Joke B  Synthetic Part
Ⅳ The Mechanism of Pleasure and the Psychological Origins of the Joke
Ⅴ The Motives for Jokes - The Joke as Social Process  C  Theoretical Part
Ⅵ The Relation of the Joke to Dreams and to theUnconscious
Ⅶ The Joke and the Varieties of the Comic