theoretical analysis of english humour
DESCRIPTION
Theoretical Analysis of English HumourTRANSCRIPT
Copyright (c) Nadim EL GHEZAL Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled "GNU Free Documentation License".
Nadim El Ghezal Frederic Sztrakos
English humour
First part : theoretical analysis
Autonomous project supervised by Petra Norroy – June 2003
2
« Comment reconnaître l'humour anglais de l'humour français? L'humour anglais souligne avec amertume et désespoir l'absurdité du monde. L'humour français se rit de ma belle-mère. »
Pierre Desproges, Les Etrangers
3
Table of contents
I – Etymology of humour...................................... 4 II - Evolution of English humour .......................... 5 III - The Art of humour ......................................... 8 IV - Bibliography ................................................ 12
4
I – Etymology of humour
The Latin word humor is a medical term which has a translation in every “civilized” language
after the 16th century. It refers to the humours’ theory, inherited from the Greeks: Hippocrates
of Cos spoke about four basic temperaments. Each temperament corresponded to the
predominance of one humour in the human body. Later, Galien explained all the diseases with
the imbalance of the humours, which became the foundation of the medicine of the middle-
ages.
At the end of the middle-ages, lots of European scientists criticized Galien’s theory. The
controversies made the word humour so fashionable that, at the beginning of the 17th century,
it became a word without precise meaning, usually used to say commonplaces, just like
“climate” or “Kafkaesque” nowadays. A character of Shakespeare’s Henry V, Nym, uses it as
a hackneyed meaningless expression.
In the 18th century, the content of the word became so important that it reached the breaking
point of its semantic resistance. A new concept appeared: the ancestor of what we call humour
today. Since, an aesthetic of English humour would be constructed and theorized in English
literature. Under the influence of England, most European languages adopted the modern
signification of the word humour during the 18th century: however, the French Academy
would not accept it until 1932.
The meaning of humour has been evolving in different ways according to the countries. This
is why it is so difficult to give it a definition. English humour is unique to England, like
endemic species, and its originality may be owed to the insularity of the country.
Ben Jonson, a contemporary writer of Shakespeare, uses the theory of humours to give a
definition of humour very close to madness1. Jonson keeps the idea of temperament behind
the word humour, but discovers a comical utilisation mode of humours. As Louis Cazamian
said, Jonson has the merit of being behind the semantic association of comic and humour: “He
destroyed any feeling which could always survive that the physical servitude implied by the
medical meaning of humour is a tragic element, better adapted to the pathos than to the
comedy. He gave to the word and to the notion a sharply funny atmosphere. The association
so concluded between the humours and the laugh was full of consequences, much more than
he could imagine.”2 What Jonson means with humour can be found sometimes in Moliere’s
plays; yet nobody outside of England has formulated it like Jonson, who will not be read in
1 Ben Jonson, Every Man Out of his Humour 2 Louis Cazamian, The development of English humor
5
France before the middle of the 18th century. That’s why humour stays on its island for 150
years: it is adopted by English people who make of it a tradition, a national feature, felt as
coming from the depth of the English soul.
II - Evolution of English humour
In Every Man Out of his Humour, Ben Jonson uses characters who are out of step with their
humour (temperament) because of the drama : they have a double nature. This duality is a
continuous reality in the story of ideas in England : sad optimism and happy pessimism are
the main ingredients of English people. The French Anglicist Floris Delattre interprets it as
the result of the mixing of French enjoyment for life and Anglo-Saxon morosity during the
Norman invasion3. This interpretation is a little fanciful but it is amazing to notice how this
duality of temperament marks the history of England: contradictory mights are epitomized by
jonsonian humours, men who concentrate all the excentricity of a political and moral attitude,
like in a comedy.
The natural and smiling consciousness of our own character among others, of our excentricity,
is precisely the sense of humour. Stephen Potter calls this ability “the English Reflex”, which
is part of the social life frame in his opinion4. The sense of humour is one of the most valuable
goods English education has passed on. However, it quickly became the luxury of upper-
classes, a recognition sign for real gentlemen. It became so conformist that it finally broke
loose from the humour: the sense of humour, prized by the Victorian society, was still
humourous but no longer all the humour. The humour is rather a conscious excentricity than a
conventional attitude: this is a reflex which less corresponds to the Victorian bourgeoisie than
to the humanist thought. We can find in Sir Thomas More’s Utopia this revealing sentence:
“while I am trying to heal the other’s madness, I must be as foolish as them.”5
The real sense of humour is devoid of any influence of class: a character of Shakespeare’s
Henry IV, Falstaff, gives its infallible recipe in a remarkable expression: “a jest with a sad
brow.”6 A great illustration of this golden rule can be found in Robert Burton’s Anatomy of
Melancholy : this big philosophical and medical treaty about melancholy is a perfect hoax. On
the medical level, the book is not without interest; however, under its imperturbable gravity, it
3 Floris Delattre, La Naissance de l’humour dans la vieille Angleterre, p.289-307 4 Stephen Potter, Sense of Humour, p.4 5 Thomas More, Utopia (édition anglaise de 1869), p.65 6 Shakespeare, Henry V, acte V, sc.1
6
reveals preposterous cutting remarks. For instance, as Burton says Jesuits are often physicians
in addition to their priesthood, he adds: “now, there are lots of them who are, permissu
superiorum, surgeon, go-between, souteneur, obstetrician.”7
In the 18th century, the intuition of Shakespeare gives rise to an aesthetic of humour: lots of
definitions are given for it. Henry Home writes, for instance: “the real sense of humour is the
characteristic of the author who seems to be earnest but paints things in a color that provokes
gaiety and laugh8.” Then, humour has nothing to do with its original meaning, nor with an
excentricity: it becomes a voluntary construction, either in writing or in character9, always
with a comical intention (which was not obvious before.) The humorist is born : I mean, the
man we call today “a man with a sense of humour.”
It must be clear that the sense of humour is devoid of any malice, at least concerning the
English use (it can be different concerning what we call “sens de l’humour” in French.) This
is the main difference with wit, which can hurt someone. Wit consists in a concise collection
of ideas, a quick and smart mode of expression, dear to the upper-class. Freud explains10 that
the wit answers to the “principle of pleasure”. It is a game which cheats the critical reason and
social laws in order to find again the euphoria of Childhood, where our instinct was not
bullied: witticisms express the deepest human instincts (sexuality, violence) with the
precautions the social censorship requires. The wit is also a social need, especially developed
during the Victorian austerity, because it was a way to breathe and satisfy human instincts,
and a tool for social recognition. Wit makes fun of someone, humour of everyone. Yet, it is
not always so easy to distinguish humour and wit: there is sometimes a sense of humour in a
witticism, for instance in this sentence from Bradley: “Everything happens if you can wait for
it; death for one.” There is some wit in the concision of the sentence but no ad hominem
argument, no violence against someone or something: just a calm acceptance of the absurdity
of life, which is very close to Home’s definition of humour. Anyway, the “wit/humour
debate” will never end because wit is part of humour. Congreve understood it very well when
he noticed that “witted people have not necessary any sense of humour, but all the humorists
have some wit.”
In the 19th century, the most important renewal arived with the nonsense: in fact, it is a return
to the jonsonian excentricity. With nonsense, the English sense of humour reaches the
paroxysm of its madness. According to Albert Laffay, nonsense would be “the sense of 7 Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy (éd. 1845), p.14 8 Lord Kames (Home), Elements of Criticism, p.161 9 this distinction belongs to Home himself 10 Sigmund Freud, Der Witz und seine Beziehung zum Unbewussten (1905)
7
humour applied to words”11. Nonsense may be the English awareness of the irrational part of
the language. Effectively, there is not such an important cult of punning on words in English
literature, contrary to French litterature. Indeed, limericks often play with words and some
English writers have tried to explore the language: in Tristram Shandy, Laurence Sterne even
trys to explore the typographic language and makes a systematic violation of the literary
conventions. But shandyism was never imitated and, in English literature, play on language
seem to have rarely chosen the way of punning on words. The play on words, called “false
wit” by Addison or “wind of brain” by Victor Hugo, was equally despised in both countries,
but often used in France despite that: maybe because French literature will not discover
nonsense before the end of the 19th century, with Jarry, Fourest and Allais.
Anyway, whatever the link may be , it is obvious between humour and nonsense, it is obvious
that nonsense is a humour. The sense of humour consists in describing reality while shaming
to believe it is ideal, and the nonsense in developing meaningless reasoning while shaming to
believe it is logical. The overuse of logic is to nonsense what gravity is to humour. The
mathematician Charles Dodgson, alias Lewis Carroll, is one of the greatest nonsensical
writers. His famous character Alice is the expression of his rational anxiety. Alice’s
adventures are the perfect illustration of nonsense : it would be a pity not to quote a passage:
“ Alice went timidly up to the door and knocked.
“There’s no sort of use in knocking,” said the Footman, “and that for two
reasons. First because I’m on the same side of the door as you are; secondly,
because they’re making such a noise inside, no one could possibly hear you.” And
certainly there was a most extraordinary noise going on within – a constant
howling and sneezing, and every now and then a great crash, as if a dish or kettle
had been broken to pieces.
“Please, then,“ said Alice, “how am I to get in?”
“There might be some sense in your knocking,” the Footman went on, without
attending to her, “if we had the door between us. For instance, if you were inside,
you might knock, and I could let you out, you know.” He was looking up into the
sky all the time he was speaking, and this Alice thought decidedly uncivil. “But
perhaps he can’t help it,” she said to herself; “his eyes are so very nearly at the
top of his head. But at any rate he might answer questions.
11 Albert Laffay, Anatomie de l’humour et du nonsense, p.137
8
-How am I to get in?” she repeated, aloud. “
To put the history of English humour in a nutshell, I would say it has a longer maturity than
any other and a real originality in its forms of expression (due to the history of English society
and literature.) Nowadays, the sense of humour doesn’t escape globalisation and it is not so
easy to see the difference between two native senses of humour. However the English one has
kept a philosophical melancholy, a smiling darkness, a taste for self-mockery which are
characteristic of it. “The sense of humour is the politeness of despair”: if this sentence of
Chris Marker should define only one sense of humour, it would be the English one. It is
nevertheless the case that no one has succeeded in giving an exhaustive definition of humour,
as noticed by Robert Escarpit12 before failing himself.
III - The Art of humour
When Falstaff speaks of a jest with a sad brow, what should we understand? Does he mean “a
manner of being”, social behaviour, which would imply that the sense of humour is linked to
affectivity? Or is it an intellectual sense of humour, a rhetorical mechanism to egg people to
laugh? In Falstaff’s case, it is obviously a way to get the prince amused, but it is not
inconsistent with the existence of an “emotionalist humour”13. For example, Burton is rather
emotionalist when he exorcizes his melancholy with a touch of irony against the Jesuits
buried in a serious account. However, most analyses of humour are intellectualist. According
to Louis Cazamian, humour is a break in judgement;14 he makes the distinction between four
kinds of judgement: moral, emotional, comical and philosophical. Amoral humour is often
immoral, in Wilde’s plays for instance: Lady Bracknell doesn’t hesitate to ask the orphan Jack
for precise details about his painful state and even expects him “to make an effort to produce
at any rate one parent, of either sex.”15 Humour “with breaking of emotional judgement” is
very common too. It consists in ignoring the sensibility of the public, as does scatology. The
break in comical judgement occurs when we play with the contrast between the gravity of the
tone and the comedy of the subject. Lastly, humour “with breaking of philosophical
judgement” corresponds to a loss of the faculty of generalization, an infantilization deleting
12 Robert Escarpit, L’Humour, p.5 13 Robert Escarpit speaks about an “emotionalist” and an “intellectualist” humour 14 Louis Cazamian, op. cit. 15 Oscar Wilde, The Importance of being earnest (1895)
9
ability of abstraction, like Sterne in Tristram Shandy. The intellectualist theory of L.
Cazamian is infortunately too reducing. As we saw previously, the sense of humour is very
kindly, contrary to other forms of comedy: the man with a sense of humor mocks himself
rather than the others. So, the sense of humour is a tolerant and pityful laugh : it is not only
mechanic, it is linked to affectivity.
Swift’s Modest Proposal is a famous instance of the English sense of humour which was even
quoted in L’Encyclopédie in 1778. This text was written in order to alert the English opinion
to the intolerable misery in Ireland. With the tone of a political economy professor, Swift
explains how to avoid famine by eating children:
“I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London,
that a young healthy child, well nursed, is at a year old a most delicious,
nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I
make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout […]
I have reckoned, upon a medium, that a child just born will weigh twelve pounds,
and in a solar year, if tolerably nursed, will increase to twenty-eight pounds.
I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords,
who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best
title to the children […]
I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar’s child (in which list I
reckon all cottagers, labourers, and four fifths of the farmers) to be about two
shilling per annum, rags included; and I believe no gentleman would repine to
give ten shillings for the carcase of a good fat child, which, as I have said, will
make four dishes of excellent nutritive meat, when he has only some particular
friend or his own family to dine with him. Thus the squire will learn to be a good
landlord, and grow popular among his tenants; the mother will have eight
shillings neat profit, and be fit for work till she produces another child […]
I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in
endeavouring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the
public goog of my country, by advancing our trade, providing for infants,
relieving the poor, and giving some pleasure to the rich. I have no children by
10
which I can propose to get a single penny; the youngest being nine years old, and
my wife past chidbearing.16”
The basis of this implacable demonstration is, as says R. Escarpit, a “suspended obviousness”:
we do not eat children. When we ignore this principle, the whole vision of the world Swift
proposes becomes nonsensical. If a cannibal had read this Proposal, he would have found it
very interesting and not funny at all… As we explained before, The sense of humour
corresponds to a civilisation, a cultural frame: it is often national, but it can be characteristic
of very small groups (cf private jokes.) Besides, the public’s nationality is not the only code
necessary to understanding the sense of humour. It requires the support of the auditory: the
public must absolutely understand it is ironical. We can find Swift’s Proposal very humorous
while we do not laugh when we read Mein Kampf. Therefore, if we were convinced that Swift
was a mad economist that really considered eating children, we would be shocked. That is
why the sense of humour requires clarity about the good intention of which it is animated. It is
the role of the “conniving wink.” The bigger the effect, the more the humorous gap will be
obvious. The wink can also consist in an implicit reference, or in the use of wit, as used by
Swift in his Proposal when he points the egoism of landlords in the second paragraph.
So, humour consists in an anomaly in front of a background of normality, and it is always
made of tensions and reassurances, even if the reassurances become rarer when the humour is
darker. This is indissociable from the idea that humour is a national matter, as we have kept
repeating for a while. Yet, does there not exist a superior sense of humour which would
transcend all the cultural frames? I think it could be the case of this sense of humour which
laughs at the nonsense of life: this exorcism of the existential anxiety has nothing to do with
national particularisms. It belongs to the whole of humanity. This sense of humour is well
illustrated by Samuel Beckett: he is like a man sentenced to death who laughs at his
executioner, or asks for the “sterilized guillotine” which is evoked in Beckett’s Murphy17. The
book begins with a typical grinding and resigned irony: “the sun shone, having no alternative,
on the nothing new.” In Beckett’s work, the nonsense is consubstantial to the existence. This
universal humour Beckett epitomizes is of course associated to a necessary impassiveness,
and also to a nearly scientific meticulousness. The taste for details is not humorous in itself,
but is a universal amplifier of humour. Dahl18 uses meticulous description in his novels so that
16 Jonathan Swift, Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from being a Burden to their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public (1729) 17 Samuel Beckett, Murphy (1938), p.120 18 Roald Dahl is an English writer, very famous -and often despised…- because of his books for children and erotic stories. He is not so famous as a novelist, yet he is a great one.
11
his twist ends are more effective. In Three Men in a boat, Jerome K. Jerome uses four
chapters purely for the preparation of the three protagonists’ travel: they try to foresee
everything. Will they take or not a liquid paraffin stove? Is it necessary, on the other hand, to
add some cheese in the supply food? Each of these questions causes the most serious debates
in the world and the arguments are put in perspective with unusual anecdotes…
In the cinema, the Monty Pythons epitomize this absolute and superior sense of humour which
laughs at the nonsense of life and speaks about swallows, sex, religion or death with the same
British impassiveness. The movie called Meaning of life shows a very acute consciousness of
this nonsense: the title itself is a masterpiece of irony and provocation.
In the second part of this work, the instance of the Monty Pythons will illustrate this complex
alchemy of impassivity, breaks in judgements, irony, connivance and meticulousness, which
is the art of humour : in fact, a philosophical behaviour very close to Descartes’ methodical
doubt, since there is the same will to avoid conformism.
12
IV - Bibliography J. Addison, The Spectator n°35, Londres, 10 avril 1971. S. Beckett, Murphy, Londres, Pan Books, 1973 E. Bruyas & D. Jamet, « Rires – Glossaire », L’Aleph n°4, 1998-2003, http://aleph.chez.tiscali.fr/quatre/ L. Cazamian, « Pourquoi nous ne pouvons définir l’humour », Revue Germanique, 2e année, Paris, Alcan, 1906 ; repris dans L’Humour anglais, Paris, Didier, 1942. L. Cazamian, The Development of English Humor, Durham (North Carolina), Duke University Press, 1952. F. Delattre, « La naissance de l’humour dans la vieille Angleterre », Revue anglo-américaine, Paris, 1927. V. Effenberg, « Vivoj humoru v modernism umeni », Divadlo n°6, Prague, juin 1965. R. Escarpit, L’Humour, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, coll. « Que sais-je ? », 1960. S. Freud, Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious, Londres, Penguin Books, 1991. A. Kazerouni, Kritik über Humor, technische Studien und Schulsysteme in Allgemeinen, Berlin, Meckern Verlag, 1968. A. Laffay, Anatomie de l’humour et du nonsense, Paris, Masson et Cie, coll. « Documents de Littérature et de Civilisation anglaises », 1970. D. Noguez, L’Arc-en-ciel des humours, Paris, Librairie Générale Française, coll. « Livre de Poche », 2000. J. Swift, Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland from being a Burden to their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public, 1729.
GNU Free Documentation License Version 1.2, November 2002 Copyright (C) 2000,2001,2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc. 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. 0. PREAMBLE The purpose of this License is to make a manual, textbook, or otherfunctional and useful document "free" in the sense of freedom: toassure everyone the effective freedom to copy and redistribute it,with or without modifying it, either commercially or noncommercially.Secondarily, this License preserves for the author and publisher a wayto get credit for their work, while not being considered responsiblefor modifications made by others. This License is a kind of "copyleft", which means that derivativeworks of the document must themselves be free in the same sense. Itcomplements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleftlicense designed for free software. We have designed this License in order to use it for manuals for freesoftware, because free software needs free documentation: a freeprogram should come with manuals providing the same freedoms that thesoftware does. But this License is not limited to software manuals;it can be used for any textual work, regardless of subject matter orwhether it is published as a printed book. We recommend this Licenseprincipally for works whose purpose is instruction or reference. 1. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS This License applies to any manual or other work, in any medium, thatcontains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it can bedistributed under the terms of this License. Such a notice grants aworld-wide, royalty-free license, unlimited in duration, to use thatwork under the conditions stated herein. The "Document", below,refers to any such manual or work. Any member of the public is alicensee, and is addressed as "you". You accept the license if youcopy, modify or distribute the work in a way requiring permissionunder copyright law.
A "Modified Version" of the Document means any work containing theDocument or a portion of it, either copied verbatim, or withmodifications and/or translated into another language. A "Secondary Section" is a named appendix or a front-matter section ofthe Document that deals exclusively with the relationship of thepublishers or authors of the Document to the Document's overall subject(or to related matters) and contains nothing that could fall directlywithin that overall subject. (Thus, if the Document is in part atextbook of mathematics, a Secondary Section may not explain anymathematics.) The relationship could be a matter of historicalconnection with the subject or with related matters, or of legal,commercial, philosophical, ethical or political position regardingthem. The "Invariant Sections" are certain Secondary Sections whose titlesare designated, as being those of Invariant Sections, in the noticethat says that the Document is released under this License. If asection does not fit the above definition of Secondary then it is notallowed to be designated as Invariant. The Document may contain zeroInvariant Sections. If the Document does not identify any InvariantSections then there are none. The "Cover Texts" are certain short passages of text that are listed,as Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover Texts, in the notice that says thatthe Document is released under this License. A Front-Cover Text maybe at most 5 words, and a Back-Cover Text may be at most 25 words. A "Transparent" copy of the Document means a machine-readable copy,represented in a format whose specification is available to thegeneral public, that is suitable for revising the documentstraightforwardly with generic text editors or (for images composed ofpixels) generic paint programs or (for drawings) some widely availabledrawing editor, and that is suitable for input to text formatters orfor automatic translation to a variety of formats suitable for inputto text formatters. A copy made in an otherwise Transparent fileformat whose markup, or absence of markup, has been arranged to thwartor discourage subsequent modification by readers is not Transparent.An image format is not Transparent if used for any substantial amountof text. A copy that is not "Transparent" is called "Opaque". Examples of suitable formats for Transparent copies include plainASCII without markup, Texinfo input format, LaTeX input format, SGMLor XML using a publicly available DTD, and standard-conforming simpleHTML, PostScript or PDF designed for human modification. Examples oftransparent image formats include PNG, XCF and JPG. Opaque formats
include proprietary formats that can be read and edited only byproprietary word processors, SGML or XML for which the DTD and/orprocessing tools are not generally available, and themachine-generated HTML, PostScript or PDF produced by some wordprocessors for output purposes only. The "Title Page" means, for a printed book, the title page itself,plus such following pages as are needed to hold, legibly, the materialthis License requires to appear in the title page. For works informats which do not have any title page as such, "Title Page" meansthe text near the most prominent appearance of the work's title,preceding the beginning of the body of the text. A section "Entitled XYZ" means a named subunit of the Document whosetitle either is precisely XYZ or contains XYZ in parentheses followingtext that translates XYZ in another language. (Here XYZ stands for aspecific section name mentioned below, such as "Acknowledgements","Dedications", "Endorsements", or "History".) To "Preserve the Title"of such a section when you modify the Document means that it remains asection "Entitled XYZ" according to this definition. The Document may include Warranty Disclaimers next to the notice whichstates that this License applies to the Document. These WarrantyDisclaimers are considered to be included by reference in thisLicense, but only as regards disclaiming warranties: any otherimplication that these Warranty Disclaimers may have is void and hasno effect on the meaning of this License. 2. VERBATIM COPYING You may copy and distribute the Document in any medium, eithercommercially or noncommercially, provided that this License, thecopyright notices, and the license notice saying this License appliesto the Document are reproduced in all copies, and that you add no otherconditions whatsoever to those of this License. You may not usetechnical measures to obstruct or control the reading or furthercopying of the copies you make or distribute. However, you may acceptcompensation in exchange for copies. If you distribute a large enoughnumber of copies you must also follow the conditions in section 3. You may also lend copies, under the same conditions stated above, andyou may publicly display copies. 3. COPYING IN QUANTITY
If you publish printed copies (or copies in media that commonly haveprinted covers) of the Document, numbering more than 100, and theDocument's license notice requires Cover Texts, you must enclose thecopies in covers that carry, clearly and legibly, all these CoverTexts: Front-Cover Texts on the front cover, and Back-Cover Texts onthe back cover. Both covers must also clearly and legibly identifyyou as the publisher of these copies. The front cover must presentthe full title with all words of the title equally prominent andvisible. You may add other material on the covers in addition.Copying with changes limited to the covers, as long as they preservethe title of the Document and satisfy these conditions, can be treatedas verbatim copying in other respects. If the required texts for either cover are too voluminous to fitlegibly, you should put the first ones listed (as many as fitreasonably) on the actual cover, and continue the rest onto adjacentpages. If you publish or distribute Opaque copies of the Document numberingmore than 100, you must either include a machine-readable Transparentcopy along with each Opaque copy, or state in or with each Opaque copya computer-network location from which the general network-usingpublic has access to download using public-standard network protocolsa complete Transparent copy of the Document, free of added material.If you use the latter option, you must take reasonably prudent steps,when you begin distribution of Opaque copies in quantity, to ensurethat this Transparent copy will remain thus accessible at the statedlocation until at least one year after the last time you distribute anOpaque copy (directly or through your agents or retailers) of thatedition to the public. It is requested, but not required, that you contact the authors of theDocument well before redistributing any large number of copies, to givethem a chance to provide you with an updated version of the Document. 4. MODIFICATIONS You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the Document underthe conditions of sections 2 and 3 above, provided that you releasethe Modified Version under precisely this License, with the ModifiedVersion filling the role of the Document, thus licensing distributionand modification of the Modified Version to whoever possesses a copyof it. In addition, you must do these things in the Modified Version:
A. Use in the Title Page (and on the covers, if any) a title distinct from that of the Document, and from those of previous versions (which should, if there were any, be listed in the History section of the Document). You may use the same title as a previous version if the original publisher of that version gives permission.B. List on the Title Page, as authors, one or more persons or entities responsible for authorship of the modifications in the Modified Version, together with at least five of the principal authors of the Document (all of its principal authors, if it has fewer than five), unless they release you from this requirement.C. State on the Title page the name of the publisher of the Modified Version, as the publisher.D. Preserve all the copyright notices of the Document.E. Add an appropriate copyright notice for your modifications adjacent to the other copyright notices.F. Include, immediately after the copyright notices, a license notice giving the public permission to use the Modified Version under the terms of this License, in the form shown in the Addendum below.G. Preserve in that license notice the full lists of Invariant Sections and required Cover Texts given in the Document's license notice.H. Include an unaltered copy of this License.I. Preserve the section Entitled "History", Preserve its Title, and add to it an item stating at least the title, year, new authors, and publisher of the Modified Version as given on the Title Page. If there is no section Entitled "History" in the Document, create one stating the title, year, authors, and publisher of the Document as given on its Title Page, then add an item describing the Modified Version as stated in the previous sentence.J. Preserve the network location, if any, given in the Document for public access to a Transparent copy of the Document, and likewise the network locations given in the Document for previous versions it was based on. These may be placed in the "History" section. You may omit a network location for a work that was published at least four years before the Document itself, or if the original publisher of the version it refers to gives permission.K. For any section Entitled "Acknowledgements" or "Dedications", Preserve the Title of the section, and preserve in the section all the substance and tone of each of the contributor acknowledgements and/or dedications given therein.L. Preserve all the Invariant Sections of the Document, unaltered in their text and in their titles. Section numbers or the equivalent are not considered part of the section titles.M. Delete any section Entitled "Endorsements". Such a section may not be included in the Modified Version.N. Do not retitle any existing section to be Entitled "Endorsements" or to conflict in title with any Invariant Section.
O. Preserve any Warranty Disclaimers. If the Modified Version includes new front-matter sections orappendices that qualify as Secondary Sections and contain no materialcopied from the Document, you may at your option designate some or allof these sections as invariant. To do this, add their titles to thelist of Invariant Sections in the Modified Version's license notice.These titles must be distinct from any other section titles. You may add a section Entitled "Endorsements", provided it containsnothing but endorsements of your Modified Version by variousparties--for example, statements of peer review or that the text hasbeen approved by an organization as the authoritative definition of astandard. You may add a passage of up to five words as a Front-Cover Text, and apassage of up to 25 words as a Back-Cover Text, to the end of the listof Cover Texts in the Modified Version. Only one passage ofFront-Cover Text and one of Back-Cover Text may be added by (orthrough arrangements made by) any one entity. If the Document alreadyincludes a cover text for the same cover, previously added by you orby arrangement made by the same entity you are acting on behalf of,you may not add another; but you may replace the old one, on explicitpermission from the previous publisher that added the old one. The author(s) and publisher(s) of the Document do not by this Licensegive permission to use their names for publicity for or to assert orimply endorsement of any Modified Version. 5. COMBINING DOCUMENTS You may combine the Document with other documents released under thisLicense, under the terms defined in section 4 above for modifiedversions, provided that you include in the combination all of theInvariant Sections of all of the original documents, unmodified, andlist them all as Invariant Sections of your combined work in itslicense notice, and that you preserve all their Warranty Disclaimers. The combined work need only contain one copy of this License, andmultiple identical Invariant Sections may be replaced with a singlecopy. If there are multiple Invariant Sections with the same name butdifferent contents, make the title of each such section unique byadding at the end of it, in parentheses, the name of the originalauthor or publisher of that section if known, or else a unique number.Make the same adjustment to the section titles in the list of
Invariant Sections in the license notice of the combined work. In the combination, you must combine any sections Entitled "History"in the various original documents, forming one section Entitled"History"; likewise combine any sections Entitled "Acknowledgements",and any sections Entitled "Dedications". You must delete all sectionsEntitled "Endorsements". 6. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS You may make a collection consisting of the Document and other documentsreleased under this License, and replace the individual copies of thisLicense in the various documents with a single copy that is included inthe collection, provided that you follow the rules of this License forverbatim copying of each of the documents in all other respects. You may extract a single document from such a collection, and distributeit individually under this License, provided you insert a copy of thisLicense into the extracted document, and follow this License in allother respects regarding verbatim copying of that document. 7. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separateand independent documents or works, in or on a volume of a storage ordistribution medium, is called an "aggregate" if the copyrightresulting from the compilation is not used to limit the legal rightsof the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit.When the Document is included in an aggregate, this License does notapply to the other works in the aggregate which are not themselvesderivative works of the Document. If the Cover Text requirement of section 3 is applicable to thesecopies of the Document, then if the Document is less than one half ofthe entire aggregate, the Document's Cover Texts may be placed oncovers that bracket the Document within the aggregate, or theelectronic equivalent of covers if the Document is in electronic form.Otherwise they must appear on printed covers that bracket the wholeaggregate. 8. TRANSLATION Translation is considered a kind of modification, so you may
distribute translations of the Document under the terms of section 4.Replacing Invariant Sections with translations requires specialpermission from their copyright holders, but you may includetranslations of some or all Invariant Sections in addition to theoriginal versions of these Invariant Sections. You may include atranslation of this License, and all the license notices in theDocument, and any Warranty Disclaimers, provided that you also includethe original English version of this License and the original versionsof those notices and disclaimers. In case of a disagreement betweenthe translation and the original version of this License or a noticeor disclaimer, the original version will prevail. If a section in the Document is Entitled "Acknowledgements","Dedications", or "History", the requirement (section 4) to Preserveits Title (section 1) will typically require changing the actualtitle. 9. TERMINATION You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Document exceptas expressly provided for under this License. Any other attempt tocopy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Document is void, and willautomatically terminate your rights under this License. However,parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under thisLicense will not have their licenses terminated so long as suchparties remain in full compliance. 10. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE The Free Software Foundation may publish new, revised versionsof the GNU Free Documentation License from time to time. Such newversions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but maydiffer in detail to address new problems or concerns. Seehttp://www.gnu.org/copyleft/. Each version of the License is given a distinguishing version number.If the Document specifies that a particular numbered version of thisLicense "or any later version" applies to it, you have the option offollowing the terms and conditions either of that specified version orof any later version that has been published (not as a draft) by theFree Software Foundation. If the Document does not specify a versionnumber of this License, you may choose any version ever published (notas a draft) by the Free Software Foundation.