Humor is a literary tool that makes audience laugh, or that intends to induce amusement or laughter。 Its purpose is to break the monotony, boredom and tedium, and make the audience’s nerves relaxed。 The writer uses different techniques, tools, words and even full sentences in order to bring to light the new and funny sides of life。 Humor is often found literature, theater, movies and advertising, where the major purpose is to make the readers and the audience happy。

Humor can also be meant to be the quality of being funny。 It refers to an ability to perceive and express a sense of the clever or amusing thing。 Humor principally can be found in the recognition and expression of incongruities or peculiarities present in a situation or character。 It is frequently used to illustrate some fundamental absurdity in human nature or conduct, and is generally thought of as a kindly trait: a genial and mellow type of humor。 It is the quality of being amusing or comic, especially as expressed in literature or speech。 It is the ability to express humor or amuse other people。 

Humor is the heart of literature。 Wang, an author of humorous books for teenagers, pointed out in a recent interview that just as humor fits into most areas of art and entertainment, it fits into literature “where it brings pleasure, eases pain, and makes the world a better place” (53)。 And although many of us speak of humor as if it were a genre, “it’s really an element—actually—makes that an assortment of elements” (56)。 Humor is not a genre。 It is a substance。 Humor is often used in literature。 Sometimes it is the witty banter of the characters, other times it is characterization itself or events that are ironic or absurd that lend humor to a book, poem, story, play, or other literary piece。 Since Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales 600 years ago, writers have been making us laugh – with humorous writing from down the ages。文献综述

Humor concerns with emotional aspect。 Through using particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement has become a tendency。 The term originates from the hum oral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, which is known as humors, control human health and emotion。 

2。2 Formats of Humor

Humor comes in many flavors, any of which may appeal to one person but not to another, and which may be enjoyed in alternation or in combination。 Here are names and descriptions of some varieties of comic expression:

1) Epigrammatic: Humor consisting of a witty saying such as “Too many people run out of ideas long before they run out of words。” (Not all epigrams are humorous, however。)

2) High/highbrow: Humor pertaining to cultured, sophisticated themes。

3) Ironic: Humor involving incongruity and discordance with norms, in which the intended meaning is opposite, or nearly opposite, to the literal meaning。 (Not all irony is humorous, however。)

4) Parodic: Comic imitation often intended to ridicule an author, an artistic endeavor, or a genre。

5) Satirical: Humor that mocks human weaknesses or aspects of society。

6) Screwball: Akin to farce in that it deals with unlikely situations and responses to those situations; distinguished, like farcical humor, by exaggerated characterizations and episodes of fast-paced action。

7) Self-deprecating: Humor in which performers target themselves and their foibles or misfortunes for comic effect。 Stand-up comedian Rodney Dangerfield was a practitioner of self-deprecating humor。

8) Black Humor: A black comedy (or dark comedy) is a comic work that makes light of serious, disturbing and/or taboo subject matter。 Black comedy corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor。 Black comedy is often controversial due to its subject matter。 来:自[优E尔L论W文W网www.youerw.com +QQ752018766- 欧·亨利的幽默写作风格(3):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_97982.html