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.
Humour that could be considered surreal has been around at least since the nineteenth century. Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Th...
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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.
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:
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,...
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