American Humor

In the 19th Century

 

Theoretical Uses of Humor

            “Humor is a way of expressing human needs in a socially accepted manner” (Avner Ziv, National Styles of Humor, x-xi).

            Freud (Jokes and Their Relationship to the Unconscious 1911) believed that humor dealt with social taboos, especially aggression and sexuality, and helped individual release psychological tensions.

            Frenchman, Henri Bergson, (Laughter 1911) theorized on the social function of humor and believed that society laughs at behavior that is not socially accepted, aiming for a punitive and corrective behavior. Satire is the best example of the social function of humor.

            Humor is a defense mechanism enabling us to laugh at what frightens us (Gallows humor/ Black humor). We “laugh to keep from crying.” Subvert pain through joking.

            Another defense aspect is self-deprecating humor, where we are “victims” of our own jokes, allowing us to laugh at our misfortunes and see the ridiculous in our own behavior.

            Intellectual humor, like word twists, absurd humor, nonsense, twists the rules of logical thinking, allowing a momentary feeling of freedom.

 

Characteristics of American humor:

            Differing political views in conflict

            Humorous enforcing of mainstream, middle-class values

            Questioning of the quality of life

            Doubt that humans can do little more than mask indifference of universe

            Love of sharply defined characters

            Belief than common people smarter than those in power (little-man humor)

 

 

19th Century Humor Characteristics

Hyperbole

Use of the Vernacular

Malapropisms (humorous misuse of word)

Cacography (misspellings for effect )

Exaggeration tempered by mocking self-deprecation

Yankee/Backwoodsman

Con men/Drunks/ brawlers

Ethnic Stereotypes

Regional Stereotypes (Yankee, Westerner, yeoman farmer)

Stringing absurdities and incongruities together while seeming unaware of it

Incongruity between grammatical, highly rhetorical language of framework and ungrammatical racy dialect of narrator.

 

Standard Humor Devices

Irony

Satire

Exaggeration/Overstatement

Caricature

Understatement

Absurdities

Incongruities

Domestic, social, political mishaps

Human foibles, minor vices

Local oddities, eccentric types

Malapropisms

Incongruities of expressions

Shocking but not gross

 

Satire

Satire blends a critical attitude with humor and wit to improve human institutions or humanity. It is a correction for cultural, social, and political ills.

Witty criticism attacking human error and folly

Attack and Remedy

            Horatian Satire: gently mocking, urbane, smiling, correcting by gentle and sympathetic laughter, noticing foibles and smiling at them.

            Juvenalian Satire: cutting, biting, harsh, pointed, bitter, ironic, pessimistic, sometimes intolerant with angry moral indignation

 

Eiron/Alazon

Alter-egos

            Alazon: Yankee, boastful imposter

            Eiron: self=depracator, shrewd, witty, self=deflating fool, dissembler, appearance different from reality

 

Selected Bibliography

Berman, Jaye. "Women's Humor." Contemporary Literature 31.2: 251-261.

Curry, Jane. "Introduction to Samantha Rastles the Woman Question." American Women Humorists: Critical Essays. Linda A. Morris, ed. New York: Garland, 1994: 287-309.

Dresner, Zita Z. "Sentiment and Humor: A Double-Pronged Attack on Women's Place in Nineteenth-Century America." Studies in American Humor 4. 1&2 (Spring/Summer 1985):18-29.

Kenney, W. Howland, ed. "Introduction." Laughter in the Wilderness: Early American Humor to 1783. Kent, OH:Kent State Univ. Press,1976:3-26.

Kolb, Jr., Harold H. "Mere Humor and Moral Humor: The Example of Mark Twain." American Literary Realism: 1870-1910: 19.1 (Fall 1986): 52-64.

Morris, Linda. Women Vernacular Humorists in the Nineteenth-Century: Ann Stephens, Frances Whitcher, and Marietta Holley. New York: Garland, 1988.

---. American Women Humorists: Critical Essays. New York: Garland, 1994.

Nilsen, Don L.F. Humor in American Literature: A Selected Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1992.

Nolan, Michael. American Humor. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven P, 2001.

Rourke, Constance. American Humor: A Study of the National Character. 1931. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1955.

Rubin, Jr., Louis D., Ed. "Introduction: 'The Great American Joke.'" The Comic Imagination in American Literature. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 1973:3-15.

Schmitz, Neil. Of Huck and Alice: Humorous Writing in American Literature. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983.

Sonnichsen, C.L. "The Humorous West." The Laughing West: Humorous Western Fiction Past and Present. C.L. Sonnichsen, ed. Athens: Swallow Press, 1988: 1-17.

Trachtenberg, Stanley. American Humorists, 1800-1950. Detroit, MI: Gale, 1982.

Thorp, Willard. American Humorists. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1964.

Wallace, Ronald. God Be with the Clown: Humor in American Poetry. Columbia: U of Missouri P, 1984.

Walker, Nancy. "Agelaste or Eiron: American Women Writers and the Sense of Humor." Studies in American Humor 4.1&2 (Spring/Summer 1985): 105-125.

---. "'I cant write a book': Women's Humor and the American Realistic Tradition." American Literary Realism 23.1 (Spring 1991): 52-67.

---. A Very Serious Thing: Women's Humor and American Culture. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1988.

Wright, Louis B. "Human Comedy in Early America." The Comic Imagination in American Literature. Ed. Louis D., Rubin, Jr. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1973: 17-31.