THE LITERARY COMEDIANS AND THE LANGUAGE OF HUMOR

The literary comedians as a group or school are often remembered for their eccentricities and showmanship. Not that they are not taken seriously any more: the labors of Walter Blair, Hamlin Hill, James C. Austin, Jesse Bier, David Sloane, Brom Weber, and others have successfully brought these writers out of the shadows and into proper light. Students of American humor no longer view them as obscure funny men with far more of the "comedian" than the "literary" to their credits.

Yet, we are still inclined to remember, foremost, their tricks of the trade, their acts and traits of recognition, especially when they served as platform humorists. When Mark Twain is considered purely as literary comedian (and Hal Holbrook is partially responsible for the image), it is the white suit, the ubiquitous unlit cigar, and the precarious stage shuffle that come to mind. With Artemus Ward it is the portly "genial showman" that contrasts so sharply with dapper, deadpan Charles Farrar Browne; with Bill Nye it is the tall, lanky figure, the shiny bald head, and blank expression; and with Josh Billings it is the man of shaggy hair, formal black suit ungraced by necktie, and an unexplained pitcher of milk placed on the lecture table in front of him.

All the literary comedians loved to pose, especially projecting the image of the unlettered funny men, the proverbial "wise fools" that had been around on American platforms and pages since the Jonathan character of early Yankee humor. Their very pseudonyms—John Phoenix (George Horatio Derby), Artemus Ward (Charles Farrar Browne), Bill Arp (Charles H. Smith), Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw), Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens), and others—implied and enforced a dual role or split personality, and supplied an additional margin of freedom to their role playing.

These same pseudonyms, moreover, lead us into the whole subject of the language of the literary comedians: the language of humor and—conversely—the humor of language. For by assuming the pen name—often a descriptive, and even humorous, one—the humorist immediately puts language to work for him: Samuel Clemens reaches into river lore (or bar slang) in adopting "Mark Twain"; David Ross Locke strikes a comic image of mineral eruption with "Petroleum Vesuvius Nasby"; Robert H. Newell employs a political pun with "Orpheus C. Kerr" ("Office Seeker"); Edgar

Wilson Nye capitalizes on the notoriety of Bret Harte’s card shark, Bill Nye from "Plain Language from Truthful James," by adopting the "Bill" as his first name. Thus without even penning a line, the literary comedians have put the language of humor and the humor of language into motion. In this perhaps small, but definite way, they begin to demonstrate what language can do and how it can be used.

Jesse Bier, in The Rise and Fall of American Humor, underscores the "verbal cast" of American humor and sees it as especially evident in the literary comedians.¹ He observes that "a certain primitive factor of competitive comic play inheres at least in American English, strongly incorporated in the work of the comedians who cater to our first mass self-consciousness of literacy" (p. 99). To compose effective language of humor took pains, the comedians assure us; the results did not come easily. We are all familiar with Mark Twain’s careful delineation of the humorous versus the comic story in "How to Tell a Story" in which the main point is the role of the carefully turned and drawn-out verbiage of the former. Not so familiar is Josh Billings’ (or Henry Wheeler Shaw’s) testimony to the time and patience required for attaining just the right turn of phrase. Melville Landon (Eli Perkins) writes of finding Shaw composing while riding on the Madison Avenue streetcar:

That morning, when the old man espied me, he was so busy with his thoughts that he did not even say good morning. He simply raised one hand, looked over his glasses and said, quickly, as if he had made a great discovery:

"I’ve got it, Eli!"

"Got what?"

"Got a good one—lem me read it," and then he read from a crumpled envelope this epigram that he had just jotted down:

"When a man tries to make himself look beautjful, he steals— he steals a woman’s patent right—how’s that?"

"Splendid," I said. "How long have you been at work on it?"

"Three hours," he said, "to get it just right."²

One of Bill Nye’s frustrations as a journalist was in having to meet such frequent deadlines that there was not enough time to work with the language as needed. For journalism students he facetiously advocated a rigorous ninety-five-year academic curriculum, upon the completion of which the student "will have lost that wild, reckless and impulsive style so common among younger and less experienced journalists."³ Nye’s proposed curriculum calls for

Two years for meditation and prayer
Five years for familiarization with English orthography

Three years for body building and athletic training ("I have found in my own jounalistic history more cause for regret over my neglect of this branch than any other.")

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Ten years for learning typography perfectly
Five years for learning to read and correct proof properly
Fifteen years for the study of American politics and civil service (followed by a medical course in how to treat contusions and bullet wounds)
Ten years for study of law
Ten years for study of theology
Ten years for mastering miscellaneous skills from cutting wood to learning horsemanship. (N & B, pp. 32–34)

That the appearance of language itself can be funny is, of course, behind the widespread use of misspelling and distorted syntax by such literary comedians as Artemus Ward, Josh Billings, and Petroleum Nasby. Josh Billings found in 1865 that his conventionally spelled "Essay on the Mule" was a flop; but the "Essa on the Muel," patterned after Artemus Ward’s use of cacography, brought instant success. Part of this use of misspelling was, naturally, an attempt at emulating various dialects, and thus it represents in part an early attempt at Realism, as Jesse Bier, Brom Weber, and others have pointed out.⁴

Though there have been debunkers of the cacography from the time it was first used by the literary comedians, several writers and critics have sensed the comic value in it. Charles Henry Smith (Bill Arp) believed misspelling "spiced" Josh Billings’ maxims and proverbs, and "made them attractive."⁵ George Washington Cable called the technique "the vehicle of that quality of playfulness so necessary to a humorist."⁶ And Max Eastman felt that "distorted words can be funny of themselves when presented in the condition called mirth."⁷ Billings himself was a bit questioning of his mode of orthography, complaining half seriously:

I adopted it in a moment ov karlessness, and like a slip in chastity, the world dont let me bak tew grace agin.

Thare iz no moral buty in it, no phisikal force in it, there iz no humor even in more than one word out ov 16 hundred spelt rong, and iz too small a proporshun tew pay.

All that i kan do in the premises i am willing tew do, and like other sinners who ask forgiveness and keep rite on sinning, now ask the world tew forgive me and i will promis not tew reform.

If others think there iz enny force or phun in bad spelling pity them.

There iz just az mutch joke in bad spelling az thare iz in looking kross-eyed, and no more.

I hope no one hereafter who takes up literature in enny ov its branches for a living, or for rekreashun, will ever be so lost tew reason or tew phun, az tew spell rong on purpose.⁸

Once having used it and established a trade mark, however, Shaw felt stuck in the mold, remarking, "When a man once puts on the cap and bells, no matter whether they bekum him or not, the world will insist upon hiz wearing them, however they pretend tew regret it."⁹ It is interesting that whether one endorses the cacography or not, Shaw’s correctly spelled aphorisms in the Century Magazine, under the name Uncle Esek, are colorless in comparison to their misspelled counterparts in his other writings.

Much of the humorous use of language by the literary comedians, of course, is reflected in such devices as puns, understatements, anticlimax, antiproverbialism, and what Walter Blair calls "incongruous mixture."¹⁰ These were among the stocks in trade that led to a language full of surprise and lively turn of phrase. Though most of the comedians used puns, Artemus Ward undoubtedly took the prize with "Utah girls mostly marry Young." Mark Twain’s clever use of understatement clinches droll point after point, such as the one putting the subject of poor Ferguson to rest in The Innocents Abroad:

Our Roman Ferguson is the most patient, unsuspecting, long-suffering subject we have had yet. We shall be sorry to part with him. We have enjoyed his society very much. We trust he has enjoyed ours, but we are harassed with doubts.¹¹

Then, of course, there is Josh Billings’ finding the ice "in a slippery condition."¹²

Bill Nye leans heavily on understatement and anticlimax. In a sketch called "Mania for Marking Clothes" a friend puts three shots through the narrator’s valise of clothing in order to mark the contents for future identification. Nye remarks, "After that a coolness sprang up between us, and the warm friendship that had existed so long was more or less busted."¹³ Anticlimax tops off the incident "A Hairbreadth Escape" in which Nye recounts losing a mole to a careless barber: "I did not care very particularly for the mole, and did not need it particularly, but at the same time I had not decided to take it off at that time. In fact I had worn it so long that I had become attached to it. It had also become attached to me" (N&B, p. 76).

Antiproverbialism and reversalism are Josh Billings’ true forte.

He proclaims,

"Give me liberty, or give me deth"—but ov the 2 I perfer the liberty. (Ice, p. 89)

Or, in another version of the same aphorism designed to advertise his famous almanac, Josh writes:

Giv me liberty or giv me deth. But if I kan’t have either, giv me Josh Billings’ ailminax for 1870.¹⁴

Other antiproverbs by Billings include,

"Give the devil his due," but be very kerful that thare aint mutch due him.¹⁵

Man was kreated a little lower than tha angells and has bin gittin a little lower ever sinse. (Sayings, p. 83)

Perhaps above all—in techniques—the literary comedians excel in colorful, lively expression and striking imagery. Originality of expression abounds. Walter Blair has said of Henry Wheeler Shaw that he created a humor "of phraseology rather than of character."¹⁶ Max Eastman, sensing the unusually original nature of Shaw’s imagery, dubbed him the "father of imagism" and asserted that he was "the first man in English literature to Set down on his page, quite like a French painter reared in the tradition of art for art’s sake, a series of tiny, brightly polished verbal pictures. . . ."¹⁷ Such an image comes alive in Shaw’s warning about misfortunes: "When a feller gits a goin down hil, it dus seem as tho evry thing had bin greased for the okashun" (Sayings, p. 83).

Bill Nye’s language of humor is characterized by picturesque speech and clever phraseology. In one piece, "A Thrilling Experience," he tells of retiring to his hotel room after a lecture, believing he hears breathing in the room, and shooting his revolver in the dark only to discover the culprit is a steam radiator. He is supposedly lying in bed reading a Smith & Wesson instruction book at the time of the shooting, and he describes his reaction to the hissing steam as opening "the volume at the first chapter and [addressing] a thirty-eight calibre remark in the direction of the breath in the corner."¹⁸ He describes a hanging as the culprit’s being "unanimously chosen by a convention of six property-holders of the county to jump from a new pine platform into the sweet subsequently."¹⁹ In an essay on noses, Nye proclaims a wax nose attractive, "but in a warm room it is apt to get excited and wander down into the mustache, or it may stray away under the collar. . ." (BH, p. 160). He jests at the smell of codfish: "When he enters our household, we feel his all pervading presence, like the perfume of wood violets, or the seductive odor of a dead mouse in the piano" (BH, p. 314).

Among the achievements of John Phoenix (Davis Ross Locke) in the line of colorful prose is his famous burlesque, "Musical Review Extraordinary." Especially in his commentary on "The Plains," an "ode symphony," Phoenix is at his imaginative peak:

The symphonie opens upon the wide and boundless plains in longitude 115ºW., latitude 35º21′ 03″ N., and about sixty miles from the west bank of Pitt River. These data are beautifully and clearly expressed by a long (topographically) drawn note from an E flat clarionet. The sandy nature of the soil, sparsely dotted with bunches of cactus and artemisia, the extended view, flat and unbroken to the horizon, save by the rising smoke in the extreme verge, denoting the vicinity of a Pi Utah village, are represented by the bass drum. A few notes on the piccolo, calls the attention to a solitary antelope, picking up mescal beans in the foreground. The sun having an altitude of 36º 27′, blazes down upon the scene in indescribable majesty. "Gradually the sounds roll forth in a song" of rejoicing to the God of Day.

"Of thy intensity
And great immensity
Now then we sing;
Beholding in gratitude
Thee in this latitude,
Curious thing."

Which swells out into "Hey Jim along, Jim along Josey," then decrescendo, mas o menos, poco pocita. dies away and dries up.²⁰

Thus Phoenix proceeds with hilarious detail through the two parts of the symphony. He closes by facetiously praising the city of San Diego, site of the performance, for showing "herself superior to her sister cities of the Union, in musical taste and appreciation, and in high souled liberality, by patronizing this immoral prodigy, and enabling its author to bring it forth in accordance with his wishes and capabilities" (pp. 49-50).

Exaggeration reigns supreme in the language of several of the comedians, especially Mark Twain and Nye. A western influence in the wilder, coarser language and imagery is obviously at work. Twain in Roughing It, for example, describes the Nevada wind, the "Washoe Zephyr" as "a soaring dust-drift about the size of the United States set up edgewise," a "pretty regular wind" that keeps "office hours . . . from two in the afternoon till two the next morning; and anybody venturing abroad during those twelve hours needs to allow for the wind or he will bring up a mile or two to leeward of the point he is aiming at."²¹

Nye will occasionally wax purposely poetic in a wildly exaggerated, rhapsodic way. In his picture of the Western sunset, for example, the tension between language and Nye’s true feelings of the image evokes humor: "The golden bars of resplendent light are shot across the deep blue of heaven, the fleecy clouds are tipped and bordered with pale gold, while the heavy billows of bronze are floating in a mighty ocean of the softest azure" (N&B, p. 62). He is also adept at creating exaggerated narrative situations, such as his account of appearing at a Fourth of July celebration and reading the Declaration of Independence to the gathering:

While I was reading the little burst of humor known as the Declaration, the staging gave way under the accumulated weight of the Fourth Infantry band and several hundred great men who had invited themselves to sit on the platform. The Chaplain fell on top of me, and the orator of the day on top of him. A pitcher of ice water tipped over on me, and the water ran down my back. A piece of scantling and an alto horn took me across the cerebellum, and as often as I tried to get up and throw off the Chaplain and orator of the day and Fourth Infantry band, the greased pig which had been shut up under the stand temporarily, would run between my legs and throw me down again. I never knew the reading of the Declaration of Independence to have such a telling effect. I went home without witnessing the closing exercises. I did not ride home in the carriage. I told the committee that some poor, decrepit old woman might ride home in my place. I needed exercise and an opportunity to commune with myself. (N&B, pp. 64–65)

The literary comedians were obviously a group that paid close attention to the nature of humor and the use of language for comic effect. Once again we are reminded of the principles Mark Twain expounds in "How to Tell a Story," as well as in his essay "The Art of Authorship" in which he emphasizes the use of the right word, as opposed to its second cousin. Moreover, essays by Nye, Shaw, and others discuss or touch on the care which the comedians had to take with language in order to be effective. It goes without saying that these writers and platform funny men had to succeed at the language of humor and the humor of language. Their livelihood depended upon it. They were, after all, literary comedians.

NORTH TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY

NOTES

A slightly altered version of this article was read at the westem Humor and Irony Membership Conference on April 1,1982, at Arizona State University, Tempe.

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    ¹(New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968), p. 99. Hereafter cited in parentheses in the text.
   ²Kings of the Platform and Pulpit (New York: The Werner Co., 1895). pp. 76–77.
   ³Bill Nye and Boomerang: or, the Tale of a Meek-Eyed Mule, and Some Other Literary Gems (Chicago: Belford Clarke, 1881), p. 34. Hereafter cited in the text as N&B.
   ⁴Bier, The Rise and Fall of American Humor, p. 98; Brom Weber, "The Misspellers," The Comic Imagination in American Literature, ed. Louis D. Rubin, Jr. (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1973), p. 131.
   ⁵The Farm and the Fireside (Atlanta: The Constitution Publishing Co., 1891), p. 252.
   ⁶"Drop Shot," New Orleans Daily Picayune, 17 July 1870.
   ⁷"Humor and America," The Enjoyment of Laughter (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1936), p. 135.
   ⁸"Answers to Personal Letters," New York Weekly, 23 June 1873, p. 4.
   ⁹Everybody’s Friend, or Josh Billings’ Encyclopaedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor (Hartford: American Publishing Co., 1874), p. 552.
   ¹⁰"The Background of Bill Nye in American Humor." Ph.D. diss., Chicago, 1931, p. 92.
   ¹¹(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1911), I, 373–74.
   ¹²Josh Billings on Ice, and Other Things (New York: G. W. Carleton & Co., 1868), p. 11. Hereafter cited in the text as Ice.
   ¹³Baled Hay: A Drier Book than Walt Whitman’s "Leaves O’ Grass" (Chicago: Belford Clarke, 1884), p. 154. Hereafter cited in the text as BH.
   ¹⁴Josh Billings’ Old Farmer’s Allminax, 1870–1879 (New York: G. W. Dillingham Co., 1902), [p. 36].
   ¹⁵Josh Billings, Hiz Sayings (New York: Carleton, 1868), p. 68. Hereafter cited as Sayings.
   ¹⁶Native American Humor (1800–1900) (New York: American Book Co., 1937), p. 121.
   ¹⁷Enjoyment of Laughter, p. 175.
   ¹⁸Remarks (Chicago: A. E. Davis, 1887), p. 132.
   ¹⁹Forty Liars, and Other Lies (Chicago: Belford, Clarke, 1882), pp. 75–76.
   ²⁰Phoenixiana; or Sketches and Burlesques (New York: D. Appleton, 1856), p. 46.
   ²¹Franklin R. Rogers, Ed. (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1972), pp. 156, 57.

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