Surreal humour

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Surreal humour is a form of humour, stylistically related to the artistic ambitions of the surrealists, based on bizarre juxtapositions, absurd situations and nonsense. A common element of surreal humour is the non-sequitur, in which one statement is followed by another with no logical progression.

Origins

Humour that could be considered surreal has been around at least since the nineteenth century. Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass both use illogic and absurdity for humorous effect. Many of Edward Lear's nonsense stories and poems are also basically surreal in approach; for example, The Story of the Four Little Children Who Went Round the World is filled with contradictory statements and odd images intended to provoke amusement, such as the following:

Development

Despite such precursors, the name "surreal" first began to be used to describe a type of aesthetic in the early 20th century. At that time, several avant-garde movements including the Dadaists, Surrealists, and Futurists began to argue for an art that was random, jarring and illogical. The goals of these movements were in some sense serious, yet they were also committed to undermining the solemnity and self-satisfaction of the contemporary artistic establishment. As a result, much of their art was intentionally amusing. One famous example is Marcel Duchamp's inverted urinal of 1917, entitled Fountain and signed "R. Mutt." This became one of the most famous and influential pieces of art in history — it is also, however, 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.

In addition to the avant-garde art movements, early surrealist comedy is found in the satirical and comedic elements of works of modern authors, who, like Lear and Carroll, wrote stories which dispensed with the normal rules of logic. Examples of this include the dark comedy of Kafka, the stream of consciousness writings of James Joyce, Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and Hunter S. Thompson, or the whimsical poetry of Dylan Thomas and E. E. Cummings. Surreal humour is also found frequently in avant-garde theatre such as the droll Waiting for Godot and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. Artists like Yoko Ono, Andy Warhol, Donald Barthelme, Italo Calvino, John Hodgman and many others have relied on this technique in their work.

Surrealist humour has played an important role in popular culture, especially since The Goon Show and The Firesign Theater. In the 1960s, surreal humour was combined with counter-culture in movements such as the Youth International Party and the Merry Pranksters, as well as in the work of psychedelic musicians such as The Beatles, Syd Barrett, Frank Zappa, The Residents, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, and Captain Beefheart.

Another significant influence on popular culture was Monty Python, most notably in their Goon Show-influenced TV series, Monty Python's Flying Circus, which featured an intricate structure and many absurdities and non sequiturs.

References