Humor literature

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Humorous Literary Genres
by Don L. F. Nilsen and
Alleen Pace Nilsen

Two Important Literary Journals
for High School Teachers
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Literature with Fan Bases
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Trekkies &
Nerdfighters
Riorden
Meyers &
Rowling

Nerdfighters and DFTBA:
“Don’t Forget To Be Awesome”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyQi79aYfxU
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HUMOR IS NOT A GENRE
• David Lubar, an author of humorous books
for teenagers, pointed out in a recent
interview that just as humor fits into most
areas of art and entertainment, it fits into
literature “where it brings pleasure, eases
pain, and makes the world a better place.”
• And although many of us speak of humor as
if it were a genre, “it’s really an element—
actually—make that an assortment of
elements.” (VOYA Aug. 2012, p. 217)
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FOUR MODES OF LITERATURE
• An alternative to talking about genres is to look at
the modes of literature.
• Modes can be communicated through all kinds of
symbols as illustrated by the Giuseppe Archimboldo
paintings from the 1500s where he used plants to
represent the four seasons of the year.
• Even though weather patterns differ around the
world, the four seasons (Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter)
are recognized and celebrated as universal symbols
of our overall life experiences.
• This inspired Northrup Frye to divide different kinds
of literary works into four modes symbolized by the
four seasons.
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SPRING = ROMANCE
• Symbolically, Romance
is connected to spring,
babies, sunrise, and
other new beginnings.
• The popular culture ties
romance to love, while in
literary criticism it is tied
in with a quest and
exaggerations in which
the fears of nightmares
are changed to the
happiness of daydreams.
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SUMMER = COMEDY
• Symbolically, comedy is
connected to summer,
youth, bright and active
parts of the day, and other
happy representations of
vigor and strength.
• The popular culture ties
comedy in with smiles and
laughter, while literary
criticism ties it to the
optimistic idea that chaos
and disruption will be
changed to order and hope.
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AUTUMN = MIMETIC/REALISM
• Mimetic is cognate with
remind and mime. It
refers to “realism” but can
also be applied to fantasy.
• It is less optimistic than
romantic and comedic
writing and symbolically
ties to adulthood or
middle-age, and to
evening and a decrease in
energy, vigor, or prestige.
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WINTER = TRAGEDY, IRONY
• Tragedy is connected to
old age, winter, night time,
fear, discouragement,
darkness, and death.
• It lacks optimism and is
filled with irony and
pessimism.
• The pop culture idea is
that audiences come away
from tragedies (e.g. King
Lear) with renewed faith in
the human spirit’s ability
to survive.
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Northrup Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism
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So What Does This Mean to
Humor?
• Let’s brainstorm and see if we can figure out what
kinds of animals, weather, food, or geological
formations an author would likely use if he or she
wanted to establish one of these four modes.
• Try thinking of examples from television, film, or
literature that clearly fit into one of the four
categories.
• Then let’s look a little deeper and think of examples
that move from one mode to the other.
• The phrase “A Happy Ending,” shows that readers
expect modes to change. See the next slide for a
more dramatic example.
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A Mode Change from Comedy to
Tragedy
• A good example occurs in Shakespeare’s
Romeo and Juliet, when Mercutio is wounded
in a sword fight and Romeo says, “Courage,
man, the hurt cannot be much.”
• Mercutio responds, “No, ‘tis not so deep as a
well, nor so wide as a chuch-door, but ‘tis
enough, ‘twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow,
and you shall find me a grave man.”
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Another Mode Change from Comedy
to Tragedy
• Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax begins with beautiful,
pastel-colored illustrations of a pleasant
village and surrounding meadow.
• But as the story progresses, and people get
greedier and greedier about harvesting what
the trees produce, the pictures get darker
and darker, and so does the future of the city.
• It’s enough to just thumb through the
pictures to document the change in mode.
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The Harry Potter Guide to the U.K. :
http://www.buzzfeed.com/tabathaleggett/the-
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THE VALUE OF HUMOR FOR THE
FOUR DIFFERENT MODES
ROMANCE (SPRING): Romances present idealized
and exaggerated worlds with plots focusing around
what Joseph Campbell called “The Journey.”
•The journey does not have to be literal, but it does
have to incorporate some psychological distancing
from family or authority figures.
•Archetypal figures who play a role in journey stories
include a Hero on a Quest, a Villain or a Trickster, a
Challenge, a Prohibition, a Sacrifice, a Sage, and at last
some kind of an Accomplishment or Success.
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Why A Journey?
When author Richard Peck spoke to one of our
classes, he said that in his novels he always includes
some kind of a journey because:
•The characters can meet and interact with new people,
which offers opportunities for new experiences and
new humor.
•On almost any trip there are bound to be
complications which adds excitement to the plot.
•Because he writes for teenagers, who are looking
forward to “leaving” their families as they go off to
college or “move out,” young people “relate” to the
idea of a journey.
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ROMANCE continued
• The accomplishment might be symbolically shown through a
physical accomplishment, but the reward is really an emotional
or intellectual epiphany. Well-known examples include The
Divine Comedy, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lord of
the Rings, and Paradise Lost.
• One of the symbolic expectations in basic stories is that the
epiphany connects Heaven and Earth, which is why epiphanies
often come to characters on a mountain top, a tower, a
lighthouse, a ladder, or a staircase.
• Examples in famously humorous stories include Jack’s
beanstalk, Rapunzel’s tower, and Yertle’s stack of turtles in the
Dr. Seuss book. Famous characters who go on journeys
include Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland,
Charlotte and Wilber in Charlotte’s Web, and most recently
Harry Potter in J. K. Rowling’s books.
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COMEDY (summer)
• In the classical sense, “comedy” isn’t necessarily funny,
but in contrast to “tragedy” it has a happy ending.
• “High comedy (what we now call ‘smart comedy’ or
‘literary comedy’) relies for its humor on wit and
sophistication, while low comedy relies on burlesque,
crude jokes, and buffoonery.”
• Jessica Milner Davies says that “whether it be English,
medieval Dutch, Spanish, French, Viennese, Russian,
improvised “commedia dell-arte,” or even Japanese
kyògen or nò theater, farce is both the most violent and
physically shocking of dramatic forms of comedy…, but it
is almost the most innocent in that unlike satire or
burlesque it does not offend either individuals or society.
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There are Two Main Types of
Comedies, 1. Comedy of Manners
• In these stories characters work to outwit the establishment or
the upper class. The traditional Comedy of Manners was based
on an unfair law, which the common person had to defeat.
• For example, in Beaumarchais’s The Marriage of Figaro, the
unjust law was that the Lord of the Manor had the right to take
the virginity of any woman marrying one of the Lord’s serfs.
• In Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, the unjust “law” was
that Shylock was approved to take a pound of flesh. But
Portia, the smart (woman) lawyer, outwitted the situation by
proving that Shylock had not been approved to take a drop of
blood; therefore he could not take the flesh.
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Comedy of Manners (CONTINUED)
• In Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest
Jack (who represents the common man) responds
affirmatively to Lady Bracknell’s question of whether
he smokes. Her response is, “I am glad to hear it. A
man should have an occupation of some kind.”
• Later, Jack answers one of her questions by saying
he “doesn’t know,” to which she cheerfully
responds, “I am pleased to hear it. I do not approve
anything that tampers with natural ignorance.
Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and
the bloom is gone.”
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PICARESQUE NOVELS ARE ALSO
Comedies of Manner
• A Picaresque Novel is a mock quest done by someone
who does not have money, power, or prestige. The
Picaro lives by his wits as he encounters various
powerful eccentrics in his episodic adventures. Examples
include Don Quixote, Huckleberry Finn, and Pickwick
Papers.
Here are six characteristics associated with the picaresque
novel:
1. The first person account tells a part or the whole life of a
rogue or picaro.
2. Rogues and picaros come from a lower social level, are of
loose character, and if employed, do menial labor and live
by their wit and playful language.
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Picaresque Novels (CONTINUED)
3. Picaresque novels are episodic in nature.
4. Picaresque characters do not mature or develop.
5. The story is realistic. The language is plain (vernacular)
and is filled with vivid detail.
6. Picaresque characters serve other higher class
characters and learn their foibles and frailties, thus
providing opportunities to satirize social castes, national
types, and/or racial peculiarities.
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Type 2: Comedy of Humors
• This second type of Comedy goes back to the belief of
medieval physiology that human dispositions are based
on the balance of the four basic fluids: phlegm, blood,
black bile, and yellow bile.
• If the balance is not right a person might be phlegmatic,
sanguine, melancholy, or bilious. Characters whose
humors are out of balance, are eccentrics or grotesques.
• Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is filled with humors
characters, although they are not quite as funny as is
Sheldon in TV’s The Big Bang. NAME SOME OTHER POP
CULTURE CHARACTERS WHO FIT THIS CATEGORY.
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Alazons and Eirons as Humors
Characters
• “Alazons and Eirons are stock humors characters
going back to Greek drama. Alazons are overly
confident braggarts getting their way by blustering
and bullying.
• At the other extreme, are the eirons, who are sly
rogues getting their way through feigned ignorance
or dumb luck.” The term “eiron” is related to the
term “irony,” because the Eirons say one thing, but
mean another.
• In Japanese culture, the Samurai are the Alazons,
and the Ninja are the Eirons.
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Quotes from Famous Authors:
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/literature
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Mimetic or “Realistic” Humor (Fall)
This is the largest part of people’s lives and includes
all kinds of humor making use of a variety of
techniques.
•“Realistic” humor demonstrates an interesting
crossover between literature and real-life because in a
way it is measuring the care and the skill with which
authors observe and record people’s actions and
thoughts.
•The concept of metamorphosis, as developed in Faust, The
Metamorphosis, Pinnochio, Pygmalion and My Fair Lady,
shows tremendous changes that encourage us to become
more aware of changes occuring in our own lives.
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Mimetic or “Realistic” Humor (CONTINUED)
• When comedians don masks and borrow voices, the
interplay of conflicting masks and voices results in an
awareness of open or subtle incongruities. French
scholar Daniel Royot says that without the interplay, the
result is parody and grotesque humor— “too much like
Jerry Lewis’s stuff.” He contrasts the visual humor of
Mel Brooks with the satirical humor of Woody Allen.
• Here also, we are encouraged to take a new look at
aspects of our lives that have been overlooked. The titles
of Regina Barreca’s books invite reflections on real life:
• They Used to Call Me Snow White, But I Drifted.
• Perfect Husbands: and Other Fairy Tales.
• Untamed and Unabashed: Essays on Women and Humor
in British Literature.
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Mimetic or “Realistic” Humor (CONTINUED)
• Barreca says that “Women’s lives have always been filled
with humor.” It emerged “as a tool for survival in the
social and professional jungles” and works as a “weapon
against the absurdities of injustice.”
• Women did not suddenly get funny in the 1990s any more
than women suddenly got ambitious in the 1970s or
sexually aware in the 1960s or intelligent in the 1980s.
• Wendy Wassserstein adds, “When I speak up, it’s not
because I have any particular answers; rather, I have a
desire to puncture the pretentiousness of those who
seem so certain they do.”
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Personification
A 240-Year-Old Swiss Automaton:
http://www.chonday.com/Videos/the-writer-automaton
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TRAGIC, IRONIC, and SATIRICAL
HUMOR (winter)
• Tragedy is the opposite of comedy in that the happiness
appears at the beginning or the middle. Somebody is
privileged, but with a fatal flaw (such as hubris or an
obsession) which causes the downfall. Well-known
examples include The Great Gatsby, Hamlet, King Lear,
Macbeth, Othello, Romeo and Juliet.
• Gothic Humor also fits into this dark side of life. It
typically occurs in haunted houses, deep forests, or
mysterious caves. The weather is dark and stormy and
the supernatural characters are mysterious as shown in
such books as Dracula, Frankenstein, The House of
Usher, Northanger Abbey, The Langoliers, and Wuthering
Heights.
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• People tend to create ironic humor when they feel that all is
lost so there is nothing left to do but laugh at one’s own
predicament. The dark humor that became popular in the mid-
20th
century was created in response to fears induced by the
atomic bomb and feelings of helplessness .
• The creators of satire, on the other hand, are purposely
exposing some kind of a problem and pointing toward a
solution. French scholar, Daniel Royot, says that while utopias
and dystopias might be token fantasies that are grotesque,
they still contain “an implicit moral standard.”
• Benign Humor is a mild type of satire with much word play.
Examples include Alice in Wonderland, the Bertie Wooster and
Jeeves novels, Peter Rabbit, Through the Looking Glass, The
Wind and the Willows, and Winnie the Pooh.
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Scientific Study of Literature:
https://benjamins.com/#catalog/journals/ssol/main
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A Satirical Example Using Benign
Humor
• This Make-Way-for-
Ducklings sign near a
Tempe park is a parody of
an incident in Robert
McCloskey’s picture book
where a Boston policeman
stops traffic for a family of
ducks.
• People familiar with the
story smile and also
recognize that they too
should watch for ducks.
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Tragedy, Irony, and Satire (CONTINUED)
Three types of humor that contribute to a tragic mode.
•Gallows humor includes Catch 22, Catcher in the Rye, Fargo, The
Loved One, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Portnoy’s
Complaint, Pulp Fiction, Slaughterhouse 5, and The World
According to Garp.
•Horatian Satire is mild and amusing. It is named for Horace, the
Roman poet and writer who lived 65-08 BCE. Contemporary
examples include Animal Farm, Brave New World, Gulliver’s
Travels, Little Big Man, Lysistrata, and The Screwtape Letters
•Juvenalian Satire is harsh and bitter. It is named for the Latin
author Juvenal, who lived in the 1st
and early 2nd
Centuries A.D.
Contemporary examples include 1984, Clockwork Orange,
Fahrenheit 451, Lord of the Flies, and A Modest Proposal
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CONTEMPORARY INFLUENCES ON
LITERARY MODES
MULTICULTURALISM
•Now that we live on a “flat
earth,” authors are welcome to
use humor to explore
complications connected to
such changes and to include
vernacular humor.
•Excellent examples include
Sherman Alexie’s Confessions
of a Part-Time Indian and
Kathryn Stockett’s The Help.
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NEARLY EVERY BOOK THAT MAKES IT TO A
BEST-SELLER LIST CONTAINS SOME HUMOR
Readers cannot—and do not
want to—laugh all through a
book. But they want some
humor to balance out
serious and tragic parts.
Virtually all authors who
promote their books on TV
talk shows (e.g. The Colbert
Report) are expected to
engage in witty repartee that
will hint at romantic and
comic modes.
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HUMOROUS ALLUSIONS
William Shakespeare is only
one of several famous authors
who would probably be
surprised at how today we use
his words and phrases as an
efficient way of establishing
mode. Kiss Me Kate alludes to
his Taming of the Shrew,
Agatha Christie’s The Mouse
Trap alludes to the tragic play
within the play from Hamlet,
and we all recognize the tragic
implications of “Et tu Bruté?”
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TODAY’S PROBLEM NOVELS ARE WHAT
USED TO BE CALLED “BILDUNGSROMAN”
These are stories that trace the
growth and development of a
young person. Most
contemporary examples are
really romances disguised as
realism. We all know that there
is plenty of humor in “growing
up,” but successful authors are
the ones who can write about
the problems humorously
without disrespecting the
young readers. Louis Sachar,
M. E. Kerr, Gary Paulson, and
Jack Gantos are able to do this.
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FILMS AND THEIR RAISING OF
EXPECTATIONS
The immediacy and the
advancements in film
technology, including the
ability to take and re-take
particular scenes, means
that authors of books have
to work harder to create
humor that will compete.
But writers do have one
advantage over film makers
in that they can use an
omniscient viewpoint and
include characters’ thinking.
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COMIC BOOKS, VIDEO GAMES, MANGA,
GRAPHIC NOVELS, and FILMS
Because fantasy and
science fiction require a
special suspension of
disbelief, the creators are
given freedom to develop
new and different kinds of
humor as in such books
as the Hitchhiker’s Guide
to the Galaxy, The Legend
of Sleepy Hollow, Peter
Pan, and The Adventures
of Walter Mitty.
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PERSONAL INVOLVEMENT
As shown by this
teenager buying a
ticket to watch Johnny
Depp in The Pirates of
the Caribbean, people
want to be personally
involved in creating
their own humor.
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ALAN Workshop at
National Council of Teachers of English
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How It Should Have Ended:
http://www.youtube.com/user/HISHEdotcom

Humor literature

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