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62PHILOSOPHY AND PHILOLOGY
THE PECULIARITIES OF AMERICAN HUMOR
Senior lecturer, researcher Zhalilova L. Zh.
Uzbekistan, Bukhara, Bukhara State University
Abstract. The given article reveals the main peculiarities of American humor, according to the examples from the works of famous American humorists of the beginning of XXth century like A.Bierce and R.Benchley. The American style of humor is studied, that concerns aspects of American culture and social discourse.
American humor refers collectively to the conventions and common threads that tie together humor in the United States. It is often defined in comparison to the humor of another country - for example, how it is different from British humor and Canadian humor. It is, however, difficult to say what makes a particular type or subject of humor particularly American.
Humor usually concerns aspects of American culture and depends on the historical and current development of the country's culture. The extent to which an individual will personally find something humorous obviously depends on a host of absolute and relative variables, including, but not limited to geographical location, level of education and context. People of different countries will therefore find different situations funny. Just as American culture has many aspects which differ from other nations, these cultural differences may be a barrier to how humor translates to other countries.
One leading analysis of American humor, the 1931 book «American Humor»: A Study of the National Character" by Constance Rourke, identified the character of the "Yankee" as that first American comic figure, the first widely accepted American character that the nation could find funny, make fun of and even export for the amusement of the world - a gangly traveler who told stories, played elaborate practical joke, was ingenuous, sly, perhaps uneducated. She reports that American comedy sprang forth after the American Revolution, when the country was "freed from the worry of self preservation" and its citizens began to regard themselves as "works of art".
American humor might also be distinguished by its most common type of humor, for example, more slapstick and physical comedy. There is less emphasis on understatement, and so the humor tends to be more open, rather than satirizing the social system through exaggeration.
Humor began to emerge in the United States soon after the American Revolution in written and spoken form and delivery methods have continued to evolve since then. This article is not strictly chronological in nature, but the mediums are arranged by the approximate date each one began to grow in importance. Literature appears before in cartoons although newspaper cartoons in the modern sense began in the 1840s. Radio and film came out roughly at the same time. Film is covered after radio because it led more directly to the television section. Stand-up comedy began to receive renewed attention in the 1970s which is the reason why it was placed directly after television.
The earliest example of deliberate, skillful and sustained comedy and satire in American literature is 1637's "New English Canaan" by Thomas Morton of Merrymount, who devoted chapters and poems to his wry observations of Native people and English Puritan colonists alike, including a witty comparison of their cultural values that produced surprising and disturbing answers. A second example is Benjamin Church's "Entertaining Passages from King Philip's War" (1680s editions, Richard Slotkin, ed.), in which a seasoned frontiersman and friend of Native New Englanders observes the foolish tactics and needless tragedies of the conflict. Another candidate for the 'founding father' of American humor is Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway credits with the invention of American Literature. It should be stated that humorists existed in the United States before Twain, for example Augustus Baldwin Longstreet collection of Southern humor came out when Twain was 5 years old, but Twain is seen as a founding figure in creating an "American voice" to humor. That stated, Twain remained conscious of his humor's relationship with European counterparts, commenting in "How to Tell a Story" that, "The humorous story is American, the comic story is
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English, the witty story is French. The humorous story depends for its effect upon the manner of the telling; the comic story and the witty story upon the matter."
His value notwithstanding, Twain represents only one strain of humor in the United States. Another famous American humorist of the 19th century was Ambrose Bierce, whose most famous work is the cynical "Devil's Dictionary". Early 20th-century American humorists included members of the Algonquin Round Table (named for the Algonquin Hotel), such as Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley. There has also been a history of using humor in children's books, sometimes using rhymed text.
Robert Benchley was an American humorist, critic and actor. Let's read several extracts from his works:
"The English language may hold a more disagreeable combination of words than "The doctor will see you now." I am willing to concede something to the phrase "Have you anything to say before the current is turned on?" That may be worse for the moment, but it doesn't last so long. For continued, unmitigating depression, I know nothing to equal "The doctor will see you now." But I'm not narrow-minded about it. I'm willing to consider other possibilities."[1.12]
"A great many people have come up to me and asked how I manage to get so much work done and still keep looking so dissipated."[2.45]
"It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous."[3.19]
"A baby is shown sitting on the floor. He appears to be about a year and a half old. Incidentally, he is a very plain baby. Strewn about him on the floor are the toys that he has been playing with. There are a ball, a rattle, a ring, a doll, a bell and a pair of roller-skates. Evidently, the candidate is supposed to be aghast at the roller-skates in the possession of such a small child. The man who drew that picture had evidently never furnished playthings for a small child. I can imagine nothing that would delight a child of a year and a half more than a pair of roller-skates to chew and spin and hit himself in the face with. They could also be dropped on Daddy when Daddy was lying on the floor in an attempt to be sociable. Of all the toys arranged before the child, the roller-skates are the most logical. ... That is my great trouble in taking tests and examinations of any kind. I always want to argue with the examiner, because the examiner is always so obviously wrong."
"Measure Your Mind", in Love Conquers AH (1922)
"In America there are two classes of travel — first class, and with children."
"Kiddie-Kar Travel", Pluck and Luck (1925)
We can see that American humor prefers more observational techniques. However, the style of observational humor (while not exclusively American) is very much a staple of the American style of humor since it seeks to point out the aspects of American culture and social discourse which are obvious while at the same time highlighting their ridiculousness.
REFERENCES
1. R. Benchley "The Tooth, the Whole Tooth, and Nothing but the Tooth", in Love Conquers All (1922)
2. R. Benchley "How to Get Things Done", Chips off the old Benchley (1949)
3. Quoted in Robert Benchley (1955) by Nathaniel Benchley, chapter 1
Article was received 2015-09-22 © Zhalilova L. Zh.
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