HUMBOLDT, ALEXANDER FREIHERR VON •

HUMBOLDT, ALEXANDERFREIHERR VON(1769-1859)German scientist and explorer.

The brotherofWilhelmvonHumboldt, hestudied engineering and natural history atFrankfurt an de.rDder, Berlin, and Gottin­gen. He traveled through western Europe,and in 179'lr-97 held an official position inthe mining enterprises of the Franconianprincipalities. From 1799to 1804, togetherwith the French botanist A. Bompard, heconducted studies in exact geography inseveral countries of Latin America, deter­mining the course of the Casiquiare Riverand climbing Mount Chimborazo to aheight of 5,400 meters. He also measuredthe temperature of the Humboldt Current(on the Pacific Coast of South America), asit was later named after him. From 1807to1827 he lived with brief interruptions inParis. Here he conducted experimentalstudies on gaseswith J. -L. Gay-Lussac, andalso evaluated the findings of his voyagesin America in collaboration with otherscientists. His major contribution to sci­ence is the 3D-volume work Voyage auxregions equinoxiales du nouveau conti­nent 11805-34).

Returning to Berlin in 1827, hedelivered his renowned lectures on physi­cal geography. Accompanied by G. Roseand C. G. Ehrenberg, in 1829 he undertookanexpedition into AsiaticRussia (theUrals,the Altai, Dzungaria, the Caspian Seal atthe behest of Tsar Nicholas I, whose mainoutcome was a worldwide chain of mag­netic observatories initiated by Humboldtand realized by the mathematician C. F.Gauss. He also published a two-volume"mineralogical-geognostic" account of histravels and a work entitled Central-Asien(1843--44). Settled once again in Berlinafter 1830, he compiled afive-volume workthat summarized all that was then knownabout the earth, Kosmos: Entwurf einerphysikalischen Weltbeschreibung ICos­mos: Outline of a Physical Description ofthe World; 1845-62). It was the last at­tempt by a single individual to collect

within the pages of a work of his own thetotality of human knowledge of the uni·verse; after his time the increasing spe­cialization of the sciences and the sheeraccumulation of data made such a ventureimpossible.

During his scientific expeditionsHumboldt assembled enormous quanti­ties of botanical specimens [some 60,000plants) and geological ones as well. Herecorded the fall in the strength of themagnetic fields from the Pole to the Equa­tor and observed swarms of meteors. Heprophetically foresaw the advantage of acanal through the Isthmus of Panama. Herecorded isotherms and collected data onthe languages and cultures of the SouthAmerican Indians. Through the accountsofhis findings- models for all subsequentundertakings-he made significant con­tributions to oceanography, meteorology,climatology, and geography, and furtheredvirtually all the natural sciences of histime; but above all else hewas responsiblefor major advances in the geographical andgeological sciences.

Magnus Hirschleld preserved inhis volume of 1914 the lingering reminis­cences of Humboldt in the homosexualsubculture of Berlin, where persons whohad known him intimately were living aslate as the first decade of the twentiethcentury, among them the homosexualdendrologist Karl Bolle. Humboldt is re­puted never to have sexual relations witha woman. To a servant who was also hislover, Johann Seifert (1800-18771, he be­queathed his entire estate. He had manyfeminine traits of mind and body, and hishomosexual personality revealed itself ina certain restlessness that led him to travelin remote areas of the globe and also toexplore a whole range of scientific disci­plines. He was the last universal intellectin Western civilization, who in the tradi­tion ofthe Renaissanceman took the entireworld as his object of study. Humboldt isstill remembered in Germany as one of thegreatest scientists his nation has everproduced.

• HUMBOLDT, ALEXANDER FRElHERR VON

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Helmut De Terra,Humboldt: The Life and Tim/lS ofAlexander von Humboldt, 1769-1859,New York: Knopf, 1955; WolfgangHagen-Hein, Alexander von Humboldt:Leben und Werk, Frankfurt am Main:Weisbecker, 1985.

Warlen Johansson

HUMORHumor is that which gives rise to

mirth or amusement, though the notionoften eludes precise definition. The psy­chology of humor has elicited much theo­rizing, the commondenominator ofwhichis that the element of surprise, of shock, orof unexpectedness is a necessary (even ifnot sufficientl condition for the humorousexperience. Humor interrupts the routine,familiar course of thought and action; itactivates the element of play which (asJohanHuizinga stressed) is a componentofculture. Acting as the personality's safetyvalve humor seems to effect a releasefrom 'constraint or excess tension. Float­ing nervous energy in search of an outletactivates the organs ofspeech and musclesof respiration in such a way as to producelaughter. At the same time humor canafford a sudden insight into the ridiculous­ness of a situation, or an opportunity tovent anger and aggression/ as in the case ofa joke or witticism directed at a personalfoe or at an enemy in wartime that placeshim in a ridiculous light.

EloticAspects. Sexualityhas beenthe subject of humor since the dawn ofrecorded history. This is in no small partbecause of the incongruity between theattraction or the pleasure felt by the actorin an erotic situation but invisible to theobserver, who can only note the objec­tively graceless or even repellent behaviorby which third parties procure sexualgrati­fication. The sexual act in itself has noth­ing aesthetic, eVen if the pleasure obtainedfrom the physical contact of two humanbodies borders on the ecstatic. From thisfundamental incongruity derives the pi­quancy of the countless jokes, anecdotes,

tales, cartoons/ and pictures in whichsexuality is the central theme. At the sametime sexual tensions in the subject-andfears of sexual aggression-can also bealleviated by the mechanism of humor.

Homosexuality and Humor.Homosexuality occupies a special placewithin the domain of sexual humor, bothbecause of the intense taboo with whichthe very mention of it was once invested,but also because of the perceived incon­gruity of erotic attraction between twomembers of the same sex~its departurefrom the cultural expectation of hetero­sexuality. The individual who departs toomarkedly from the gender role norms ofthe culture is bound to be a target ofdisapproval, expressed at least in the formof humor. Moreover, homosexual activityitself, aimless and pleasureless as it is tothe heterosexual observer, can be the ob­ject of rage and contempt but also of ahumor that incorporates symbolic aggres­sion. Humor in regard to homosexual ac- .tivity can be an escape route or symbolicexcuse for the inconsistent behaVior, orcan express absolution from the culturaltaboo in the form of an expressive laugh orindirect approval of what cannot be expli­citly acknowledged. As homosexuals havecome to be recognized as a socially dis­crete element of Western society, "fagjokes" have taken their place beside ethnicjokes as facets of intergroup tension.

Humorin sexual matters may alsoreflect the tensions between the officialnorm of society, which condemns all sex­ual expression outside of marriage, and theunofficial admiration and envy accordedthe individual who successfully violatesthe taboo and obtains the forbidden pleas­ure. There is also the implicit denigrationof the passive partner, who is seen as beingused for the pleasure of the active onewhile obtaining nothing in return. Thesedichotomies are intensified in the case ofthe doubly tabooed and intensely para­doxical homosexual experience, whichdemands an explanation and justificationthat Western society has thus far been

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