Page 234 - DENG402_HISTORY_OF_ENGLISH_LITERATURE

Unit 31: Black Comedy, Angry Young Men and Kitchen Sink Drama

31.1 Black Comedy Notes

A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor.
The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier
concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that
anesthetizes an emotion, all humor is “black humor,” and that there is no such thing as “non-black
humor”.

31.1.1 History and Etymology

Coinage in France by André Breton

Black humor (from the French humour noir) is a term coined by Surrealist theoretician André
Breton in 1935, to designate a sub-genre of comedy and satire in which laughter arises from
cynicism and skepticism, often about the topic of death.
Breton coined the term for his book Anthology of Black Humor (Anthologie de l’humour noir), in
which he credited Jonathan Swift as the originator of black humor and gallows humor, and
included excerpts from 45 other writers. Breton included both examples in which the wit arises
from a victim, with which empathizes, as it’s more typical in the tradition of gallows humor, and
examples in which the comic is used to mock the victim, whose suffering is trivialized, and leads
to sympathizing with the victimizer, as is the case with Sade. Black humor is related to that of the
grotesque genre.

Did u know? Breton identified Swift as the originator of black humor and gallows humor,
particularly in his pieces Directions to Servants (1731), A Modest Proposal
(1729), A Meditation Upon a Broom-Stick (1710), and a few aphorisms.

The terms black comedy or dark comedy have been later derived as alternatives to Breton’s term.
In black humor, topics and events that are usually regarded as taboo, specifically those related to
death, are treated in an unusually humorous or satirical manner while retaining their seriousness;
the intent of black comedy, therefore, is often for the audience to experience both laughter and
discomfort, sometimes simultaneously

Adoption in Literary Criticism

An English-language anthology edited by Bruce Jay Friedman, titled Black Humor, imported the
concept to the United States, labeling with it very different authors and works, arguing that they
shared the same literary genre. The Friedman label came to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s.
Early American writers who employed black humor were Nathanael West and Vladimir Nabokov.
In 1965 a mass-market paperback, titled Black Humor, was released. Containing work by a myriad
of authors, which included J.P. Donleavy, Edward Albee, Joseph Heller, Thomas Pynchon, John
Barth, Vladimir Nabokov, Bruce Jay Friedman, who also edited the book, and Louis-Ferdinand
Celine, this was one of the first American anthologies devoted to the conception of black humor as
a literary genre; the publication also sparked nationwide interest in black humor. Among the
writers labeled as black humorists by journalists and literary critics are Roald Dahl, Thomas
Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, Warren Zevon, John Barth, Joseph Heller, and Philip Roth. The rationale
for applying the label black humorist to all the writers cited above is that they have written
novels, poems, stories, plays and songs in which profound or horrific events were portrayed in a
comic manner.
Black comedy employs a form of humor that may be known as 'black humor', 'dark humor', or, if
specifically relating to death, 'morbid humor.' The purpose of black humor is to make light of
serious and often taboo subject matter, and some comedians use it as a tool for exploring vulgar

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