The Nineteenth Century in Print: Periodicals
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Humorous Writing
Many of the periodicals included in the collection regularly featured writing by humorists. Humorists use a variety of techniques to amuse or entertain their readers. Among these are satire, exaggeration, word play, clashing contexts (the fish out of water), and funny sounds.
Mark Twain (the pen name Samuel Clemens used) was commissioned to write a series for Galaxy magazine. The first appeared in the May 1870 issue. In his inimitable style, Twain explained the choice of the title, "Memoranda," and what readers could expect to find in this "department:"
I have chosen the general title Memoranda for this department because it is plain and simple, and makes no fraudulent promises. I can print under it statistics, hotel arrivals, or anything that comes handy without violating faith with the reader.
Puns cannot be allowed a place in this department. Inoffensive ignorance, benignant stupidity, and unostentatious imbecility will always be welcomed and cheerfully accorded a corner, and even the feeblest humor will be admitted, when we can do no better; but no circumstances, however dismal, will ever be considered a sufficient excuse for the admission of that last and saddest evidence of intellectual poverty, the Pun. M.T.
From "Memoranda," The Galaxy, Volume 9, Issue 5, May 1870, page 717.
Read several of Twain's columns.
- What techniques does Twain use to amuse and entertain his readers?
- Why do you think Twain calls puns the "saddest evidence of intellectual poverty"? Do you agree? Explain your answer.
- Are Twain's columns still funny today? Why or why not?
- In his last column, Twain writes that "to be a monthly humorist in a cheerless time" was a dreary occupation. What led Twain to make this statement? Do you think that writing humor when things were not going well in your personal life would be difficult?
How is the humor in Twain's fiction similar to the humor in his "Memoranda" columns?