Humour in Poe, Humour in Horror

[Caligari]

Greetings, all.

Just thought I'd share a thought I bring up in meatspace when a discussion turns to Poe.

There is plenty of black humour in Poe, if you know where to look. The best example, I think, is "Some Words With a Mummy," and while it's well known to be satirical, frankly it had me howling. It's a perfect example of the unreliable narrator technique. Our protagonist enjoys a "frugal," meal of three pounds of welsh rabbit, for instance.

While the satire in "Some Words with a Mummy," is pretty clear, it leads to a more interesting question, or series of questions: Can horror be funny and still be horror?

"Some Words with a Mummy," while a satire, and certainly ghoulish, (they hook the mummy up to a battery to get his legs kicking), is more of a satire. Perhaps I'm being too analytic with potentially pointless classifications, but it's much easier to think of comedies with horror themes than it is to cite horror stories with bits of humour.

In the former case there are numerous examples in film and literature. Some well known examples of comedy-gone-horror are things like Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein, the Munsters, Shawn of the Dead, Eight Legged Freaks, arguably Fido, etc. Note how only some of these are any good.

So the question to you, dear reader, who has subjected himself to these ramblings, is can something be fundamentally horror and still have a joke or two, or does the comedy somehow negate the horror?

[enthusiast]

Wasn't it Robert Bloch who said that humour and horror are two sides sides of the same coin?

Many of Bloch's short horror stories are filled with jokes and outrageous puns (e.g. the "What's the matter, cat got your tongue?" ending to "Catnip") but they don't diminish the impact of the horrific situations presented.

[hopfrog]

I grow weary of humour in Cthulhu Mythos fiction as I find it an attempt to be "cute" -- it strikes me that this kind of story is written by people who cannot take Lovecraft seriously and thus they write "funny" stories. I love Peter Cannon's Lovecraftian Wodehouse tales, such as "Something Foetid" -- but here the humour is intelligent and, to me, genuinely funny. I enjoy touches of humour, but stories that go for laugh after laugh usually really annoy me. A good pal of mine has a series of humourous Deep Ones tales, and I think they're just dumb, but almost everyone else thinks they're great fun -- so maybe I'm just an overly serious grump on the subject. I've tried to inject humour in some of my weird fiction, but it seems that most people don't "get" it, don't realise I'm trying to coax a grin. Like everything, it requires great talent, I think, to do this kind of thing well.

[mishima head]

I think in some cases, humor can actually deepen a feeling of horror...

Think of the Ligotti story, Les Fleurs, where one of the diary entries reads, "Good-bye diary. See you when I get back."

Hey that's a funny line, but at the same time, it's intensely creepy.

Right now, Im reading Poe after a long absence. Actually Ive been sleeping quite a while now.

[Joel]

I remember reading an article about 20 years ago that argued that Poe was first and foremost a satirical writer, and that his darker stories were informed by a sense of irony and a consciously overdone melodrama. This may help to illuminate the relationship between Poe, Bierce and Bloch, all of whom intertwined terror and comedy in an obsessive way.

On a slight tangent, the underlying humour of 'The Raven' is accentuated if you sing it to the tune of 'My Darling Clementine'. Or if you prefer a slower tempo and a more decadent vibe, you can sing it to the tune of 'Mack the Knife'.

[Sam]

I like this topic... I think humor and horror can definitely coexist, depending on the mood and overall tone that the author is going for. While not strictly a horror writer, Neil Gaiman makes good use of both, often, in many of his stories. I must admit though, I am more receptive to the darker and more unrelenting tales of horror. Most of my favorite stories have little or no give, maybe a slight grin at a bit of irony here or there. Ligotti certainly seems to fall into this category. Still, this thread makes me want to revisit Poe, something I haven't done for far too long. Thanks for the thoughtful post!