surreal humour

File:Edward Lear and His Cat Foss 1885.jpg's 1885 lithograph Edward Lear, Aged 73 and a Half, and His Cat Foss, Aged 16]]

Surreal humour is the effect of the illogical and absurd being used for humorous effect. Under such premises, people can identify precursors and early examples of surreal humour at least since the 19th century, such as in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, both of which use the illogical and absurd (hookah-smoking caterpillars, croquet matches using live flamingos as mallets, etc.) for humorous effect. Many of Edward Lear's children's stories and poems contain nonsense and are basically surreal in approach. For example, The Story of the Four Little Children Who Went Round the World (1871) is filled with contradictory statements and odd images intended to provoke amusement, such as the following:

{{Cquote|After a time they saw some land at a distance; and when they came to it, they found it was an island made of water quite surrounded by earth. Besides that, it was bordered by evanescent isthmuses with a great Gulf-stream running about all over it, so that it was perfectly beautiful, and contained only a single tree, 503 feet high.{{cite book|last=Lear|first=Edward|title=Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13650/13650-h/13650-h.htm#children}}}}

File:Duchamp Fountaine.jpg's Fountain (1917), an inverted urinal signed "R. Mutt".]]

In the early 20th century, several avant-garde movements, including the dadaists, surrealists, and futurists began to argue for an art that was random, jarring and illogical.{{cite book|title=The History of Futurism: The Precursors, Protagonists, and Legacies|publisher=Lexington Books|year=2012|editor1-last=Buelens|editor1-first=Geert|editor2-last=Hendrix|editor2-first=Harald|editor3-last=Jansen|editor3-first=Monica|isbn=978-0-7391-7387-9}} The goals of these movements were in some sense serious, and they were committed to undermining the solemnity and self-satisfaction of the contemporary artistic establishment. As a result, much of their art was intentionally amusing.

One example is Marcel Duchamp's Fountain (1917), an inverted urinal signed "R. Mutt". This became one of the most famous and influential pieces of art in history, and one of the earliest examples of the found object movement. It is also a joke, relying on the inversion of the item's function as expressed by its title as well as its incongruous presence in an art exhibition.{{cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3671180/Duchamps-Fountain-The-practical-joke-that-launched-an-artistic-revolution.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/3671180/Duchamps-Fountain-The-practical-joke-that-launched-an-artistic-revolution.html |archive-date=2022-01-12 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|first=Martin|last=Gayford|title=Duchamp's Fountain: The practical joke that launched an artistic revolution|date=16 February 2008|work=The Daily Telegraph |location=UK |access-date=5 February 2017}}{{cbignore}}

The word surreal first began to be used to describe a type of aesthetic of the early 1920s.

Surreal humour is also found frequently in avant-garde theatre such as Waiting for Godot and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. In the United States, S. J. Perelman (1904–1979) has been identified as the first surrealist humour writer.{{cite journal|first=Larry|last=McCaffery|author-link=Larry McCaffery|date=1982|title=An interview with Donald Barthelme|journal=Partisan Review|volume=49|page=185|quote=People like SJ Perelman and EB White—people who could do certain amazing things in prose. Perelman was the first true American surrealist—ranking with the best in the world surrealist movement.}}

Surrealist humour appeared on British radio from 1951 to 1960 by the cast of The Goon Show: Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, and Harry Secombe.{{cite book | last = McCann | first = Graham | title = Spike & Co. | year = 2006 | publisher = Hodder & Stoughton | location = London | isbn = 0-340-89809-7 }} (a) pp.4, 5, 61; (b)p.183, (d) pp.180, 181, (e)p.203{{cite book | last = Wilmut | first = Roger |author2=Jimmy Grafton | title = The Goon Show Companion: A History and Goonography | year = 1976 | publisher = Robson Books | location = London | isbn = 0-903895-64-1 | chapter = The Birth of the Goons | quote = ...one puzzled planner was heard to ask, 'What is this "Go On Show" people are talking about? }}{{rp|37}} The Goons' work influenced the American radio comedy troupe the Firesign Theatre (1966–2012).{{cite web |url=http://www.firezine.net/issue4/fz4_13.htm |title=FIREZINE #4: Under the Influence of the Goons |publisher=Firezine.net |date=Winter 1997–1998 |access-date=October 28, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060627180615/http://www.firezine.net/issue4/fz4_13.htm |archive-date=June 27, 2006 |url-status=live }}{{cite book | last = Ventham | first = Maxine | title = Spike Milligan: His Part In Our Lives. | year = 2002 | publisher = Robson | location = London | isbn = 1-86105-530-7 }} The Firesigns wrote sophisticated comic radio plays, many of which were recorded on albums.

Surrealist humour is predominantly approached in cinema where the suspension of disbelief can be stretched to absurd lengths by logically following the consequences of unlikely, reversed or exaggerated premises. Luis Buñuel is a principal exponent of this, especially in The Exterminating Angel. It is a prominent feature in the television and cinematic work of the British comedy troupe Monty Python (1969–2015). Other examples include The Falls by Peter Greenaway and Brazil by Terry Gilliam.{{cite book|last=Vogel|first=Amos|title=Film as a Subversive Art|location=New York|publisher=Random House|date=2005|isbn=0-394-49078-9}}{{cite book|last=Williams|first=Linda|title=Figures of Desire: An Analysis of Surrealist Film|publisher=University of California Press|date=1992|isbn=0-520-07896-9}}

Surrealist humor has become increasingly popular in both children- and adult-oriented western animation, most notably in shows such as Drawn Together, The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad!, Regular Show, South Park, SpongeBob SquarePants, Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and more recently, Smiling Friends.{{Citation needed|reason=These pages all have surreal humor tags, but not being a regular wikipedia editor, I'm not sure what citations would be appropriate|date=February 2024}}

Contemporary Internet meme culture, such as Weird Twitter, Skibidi Toilet, and YouTube poop, is also influenced by surreal humour.{{cite web|last=Hoins|first=Megan|title='Neo-Dadaism': Absurdist Humor and the Millennial Generation|publisher=Medium|date=2016|url=https://medium.com/@meganhoins}}

Mary K. Rodgers and Diana Pien analysed the subject in an essay titled "Elephants and Marshmallows" (subtitled "A Theoretical Synthesis of Incongruity-Resolution and Arousal Theories of humour"), and wrote that "jokes are nonsensical when they fail to completely resolve incongruities," and cited one of the many permutations of the elephant joke: "Why did the elephant sit on the marshmallow?" "Because he didn't want to fall into the cup of hot chocolate."{{cite book|editor1-last=Chapman|editor1-first=Antony J.|editor2-first=Hugh C.|editor2-last=Foot|title=It's A Funny Thing, Humor|publisher=Pergamon Press|date=1977|pages=37–40}}

"The joke is incompletely resolved in their opinion," noted Elliott Oring, "because the situation is incompatible with the world as we know it. Certainly, elephants do not sit in cups of hot chocolate."{{harvnb|Oring|2003|pages=20–21}} Oring defined humour as not the resolution of incongruity, but "the perception of appropriate incongruity,"{{harvnb|Oring|2003|page=14}} that all jokes contain a certain amount of incongruity, and that absurd jokes require the additional component of an "absurd image," with an incongruity of the mental image.{{cite book|last=Oring|first=Elliott|title=Jokes and Their Relations|publisher=University Press of Kentucky|date=1992|pages=21–22}}

• Non sequitur
• Theatre of the Absurd

{{Reflist}}

• {{Cite book |last=Oring |first=Elliott |date=2003 |title=Engaging Humor |url=https://archive.org/details/engaginghumor0000orin |url-access=registration |location=Urbana, Ill. |publisher=University of Illinois Press |isbn=9780252027864 |oclc=49383970}}

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Category:Humour