nytimes | People widely report that crying relieves tension, restores emotional
equilibrium and provides “catharsis,” a washing out of bad feelings.
(Tears, in fact, seem to be the only body fluids that do not evoke
feelings of disgust.) The term “catharsis” has religious overtones of
purging evil and sin; it’s no surprise that religious icons so
frequently feature tearful saints and that religious ceremonies are,
around the world, one of the main settings for the release of tears.
Crying is a nearly universal sign of grief, though some mourners report
that, despite genuine sorrow, they cannot shed tears — sometimes even
for years after their loved one has gone. Unlike today, when the privacy
of grief is more respected, the public or ceremonial shedding of tears,
at the graveside of a spouse or the funeral of a sovereign, were once
considered socially or even politically essential. To avoid dry eyes,
widows would fill their handkerchiefs with onions lest their bereavement
be underestimated.
When I lecture on crying, I ask my audience to let me know, by a show of
hands, which art forms most move them to tears. About 80 percent say
music, followed closely by novels (74 percent), but then the figures
fall sharply, to 43 percent, for poetry, and 10 to 22 percent for
paintings, sculpture and architecture.
I am often asked why I do not include cinema in these surveys, but what
drives emotion in films is usually the music. Witness Michel
Hazanavicius’s recent “silent” film “The Artist,” which won the Academy
Award for best picture last year. Anything but silent, it arouses
intense emotions through its musical score.
The physical act of crying is mainly one of inhaling — as opposed to
laughter, which requires exhaling — and involves the soft palate, larynx
and pharynx. Crying disrupts speech, which is why we choke up when we
weep. This suggests to linguists and anthropologists that emotional
crying evolved before propositional language, perhaps explaining why
tears communicate states of mind and feelings that are often so
difficult to express in words. Of course, from an evolutionary
perspective, recognition of emotion (usually through facial gesture) was
essential for survival.
