HUMOR IN GOTHIC CATHEDRALS: Notre Dame Cathedral is on the Isle de la Cité in Paris France. At the entrance is the sculpture of a beheaded Christian martyr (St. Denis) holding his own head. Winchester Cathedral is a Gothic Cathedral in England. In the rafters is the Winchester Imp, placed there by the masons, and smiling down on the congregation below.

CLASSICAL GRAFFITI AND IRONIC ORATORY: In ancient Greece and Rome, there are examples of graffiti, many of which are very funny. Classical Oratory also contained many examples of Irony, Paradox, Parody, and Ridicule.

HISTORY OF COMEDY: Greek comedies were often bawdy or ribald and ended happily for everyone. To Chaucer, Shakespeare, and other writers of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, a comedy was a story (but especially a play) with a happy ending, whether humorous or not.

OLD COMEDY, MIDDLE COMEDY, AND NEW COMEDY: Old Comedy of the 6th & 5th Centuries BC often made fun of a specific person and of current political issues. Middle Comedy of the 5th & 4thCenturies BC made fun of more general themes such as literature, professions, and society. New Comedy of the 4th& 3rd Centuries BC usually revolved around the bawdy adventures of a blustering soldier, a young man in love with an unsuitable woman, or a father figure who cannot follow his own advice.

COURT JESTERS FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO THE RENAISSANCE: During the Middle Ages, Kings’ Court Jesters were not to be in competition with the Kings. So most often they were deformed midgets with humped backs and bug eyes. They acted stupidly and wore strange clothing—cap and bells, motley clothes, and pointed shoes. Their scepters were made from pig bladders as parodies of the King’s scepter of power. In many plays, the fool is smarter than the King, but because of his appearance he could be critical of the King and the Kingdom.

FOOLS DURING THE RENAISSANCE AND BEHOND: During the Middle Ages, Kings’ Court Jesters were not to be in competition with the Kings. So most often they were deformed midgets with humped backs and bug eyes. They acted stupidly and wore strange clothing—cap and bells, motley clothes, and pointed shoes. Their scepters were made from pig bladders as parodies of the King’s scepter of power. In many plays, the fool is smarter than the King, but because of his appearance he could be critical of the King and the Kingdom.

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY: The eighteenth century saw the rise of a new kind of humorous author: the wit. A wit is usually a person who can make quick, wry comments in the course of conversation. Swift is best known for his novel Gulliver’s Travels in which sailor Lemuel Gulliver recounts his visits to strange lands inhabited by fantastic peoples. Gulliver’s last voyage finds him in a land where horses are the dominant species. They keep dumb, barbaric humans (called Yahoos) as beasts of burden. This novel is a humorous reflection on the failings of civilization.

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: Jane Austen’s characters are simultaneously true-to-life and ridiculous. All of her novels can simultaneously be read as scorching satires of human nature, comedies of humours and comedies of manners. Charles Dickens is famous for the eccentrics that he portrays in his novels. For example, the characterizations of Silas Wegg and Mr. Venus in Our Mutual Friend make us laugh in delight at the recognition and exaggeration of a ‘type’ of person that we ourselves have met in real life.

THE MID AND LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY: James Russell Lowell’s Birdofreedum Sawin said, “at any rate, I’m so used up I can’t do no more fightin’ / The only chance thet’s left to me is politics or writin’.” On the western frontier, wise fools, con-men, and tricksters like Johnson J. Hooper’s Simon Suggs and George Washington Harris’s Sut Lovingood were employed to portray the rough and unsophisticated American as an ironic hero. Suggs was lazy and dishonest, and he knew it was “good to be shifty in a new country.” The late nineteenth century brought us such writers as Mark Twain, and Oscar Wilde

THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: The twentieth Century brought us suich writers as P. G. Woodehouse, E. B. White, George Orwell, Isaacv Asmov, and Joseph Heller. Such writers developed a contrast between satire (which tells society how to change), and gallows humor (which says that none of us are going to get out of this alive, so lay back and enjoy it).

TELEVISION: Television opened huge new vistas for performing arts in general, and humor in particular. Early TV featured humorous variety shows like Laugh In, and Saturday Night Live (still being aired). There was also much sketch humor in such shows as Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

THE FIRST COMIC STRIPS: The early strips such as “The Yellow Kid” were curious combinations of down-to-earth slapstick, topical joking, and rather abstract referencing. In the hands of a Windsor McCay (“Little Nemo in Slumberland,” “The Adventures of the Rare-bit Fiend,”) they were creative indeed, and could border on the surreal and handle social satire at the same time. George Herriman’s “Krazy Kat” mostly settled on a domestic humor involving marital conflict and bratty kids.

THE GOLD AGE OF HUMOR: The golden age of humor was often considered to be the 1920s but would be more accurately placed from the end of WWI to the early 1930s. During this golden age, we see the development of the “little man” in Casper Milquetoast, Andy Gump, Jiggs, Mutt (of “Mutt and Jeff”), and Dagwood (of “Blondie and Dagwood”).

THE 1940s: The humorous comic strips that were revived after the Second World War included Walt Kelly’s “Pogo,” and Al Capp’s “Li’l Abner.” Kelly’s swamp fables were allegorical ‘swamps’ themselves, loaded with social and political commentary lurking behind the antics and interactions of the familiar cast of animal characters. Al Capp’s “hillbillies” gave access to Capp’s views on topical events, government, and American values.

1950s TO THE PRESENT: THE AGE OF GALLOWS HUMOR AND SKEPTICISM: The “Peanuts” comic strip uses kids to reflect adult neuroses: Lucy uses her meanness to compensate for the unrequited love she has for Schroeder (who keeps trying to play Beethoven on a toy piano with painted-on black keys). Linus has his blanket to comfort him when his childhood fears and fantasy get in the way of his intellect, and the dog, Snoopy, deals with the limitations of his ‘dogness’ by pretending to be the Red Baron, or a lawyer, writer, hockey player, detective or the resident of a deluxe doghouse complete with a pool table and rare paintings. Charlie Brown, the consummate loser, little man character, reflects all the fears, weaknesses, and failures of modern man. He knows that Lucy will pull the football away from him when he tries to kick it, yet every year he tries again.