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[[File:Mark Twain by AF Bradley.jpg|thumb|upright|Samuel Clemens, American humorist who wrote under the pen name [[Mark Twain]].]]
A '''humorist''' is an [[intellectual]] who uses [[humor]], or [[wit]], in [[writing]] or [[public speaking]],. butA '''raconteur''' is notone anwho artisttells who[[anecdote]]s in seeksa onlyskillful toand elicitamusing laughsway.<ref>{{cite book
|last=[[Henri Bergson|Bergson]]
|first=Henri
|translator-last1=Brereton
|translator-first1=Cloudesley
|translator-last2=Rothwell
|translator-first2=Fred
|year=1900
|chapter=The Comic Element in Situations and the Comic Element in Words
|title=Laughter: an Essay on the Meaning of the Comic
|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4352/4352-h/4352-h.htm
|publisher=The Macmillan Company
|publication-date=1912
|quote=A humorist is a moralist disguised as a scientist, something like an anatomist who practises dissection with the sole object of filling us with disgust; so that humour, in the restricted sense in which we are here regarding the word, is really a transposition from the moral to the scientific.}}</ref> Humorists are distinct from [[comedian]]s, who are [[show business]] entertainers whose business is to make an audience laugh. It is possible to play both roles in the course of a career. A raconteur is one who tells [[anecdote]]s in a skillful and amusing way.
[[Henri Bergson]] writes that a humorist's work grows from viewing the morals of society.<ref>{{cite book |last=[[Henri Bergson|Bergson]] |first=Henri |translator-last1=Brereton |translator-first1=Cloudesley |translator-last2=Rothwell |translator-first2=Fred |year=1900 |chapter=The Comic Element in Situations and the Comic Element in Words |title=Laughter: an Essay on the Meaning of the Comic |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4352/4352-h/4352-h.htm |publisher=The Macmillan Company |publication-date=1912 |quote=A humorist is a moralist disguised as a scientist, something like an anatomist who practises dissection with the sole object of filling us with disgust; so that humour, in the restricted sense in which we are here regarding the word, is really a transposition from the moral to the scientific. |access-date=2021-01-17 |archive-date=2022-04-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220408170314/https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4352/4352-h/4352-h.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>
{{Undue weight section|date=March 2023}} ▼The term [[comedian]] is generally applied to one who is performing to an audience for laughter.
[[Mark Twain]] (pen name of Samuel Langhorn Clemens, 1835–1910) was widely considered the "greatest humorist" the U.S. ever produced, as noted in his ''New York Times'' obituary.<ref name="Obituary New York Times">{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0421.html |title=Obituary (New York Times) |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=2009-12-27}}</ref> It's a distinction that garnered wide agreement, as [[William Faulkner]] called him "the father of [[American literature]]".<ref name="faulkner">{{cite book |last=Jelliffe |first=Robert A. |title=Faulkner at Nagano |year=1956 |publisher=Kenkyusha, Ltd |location=Tokyo}}</ref> ▼The United States national cultural center, the [[John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts]], has chosen to award a [[Mark Twain Prize for American Humor]] annually since 1998 to individuals who have "had an impact on American society in ways similar to the distinguished 19th century novelist and essayist best known as Mark Twain".<ref name="kennedy-center1">{{cite web|url=http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/specialevents/marktwain/ |title=The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for Humor |author=<!--Not stated--> |date=2017 |publisher=Kennedy-center.org |access-date =2014-06-25}}</ref> Despite the name, conferral of the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize does not make the awardee a humorist. {{Asof|2019}}, the center has chosen to confer the prize on twenty-one comedians<ref>The Kennedy Center revoked [[Bill Cosby]]'s Mark Twain award in 2018.</ref> and one playwright;<ref name="kennedy-center1"/> only two recipients, the comedian [[Steve Martin]] and the playwright [[Neil Simon]], are commonly recognized as humorists in the sense of Twain. ▼
==Distinction from a comedian==
[[Humor]] is the quality which makes experiences provoke laughter or amusement, while [[comedy (drama)|comedy]] is a [[performing art]]. The nineteenth-century German philosopher [[Arthur Schopenhauer]] lamented the misuse of ''humor'' (a German [[loanword]] from English) to mean any type of comedy. A humorist is adept at seeing the humor in a situation or aspect of life and relating it, usually through a story; the [[comedian]] generally concentrates on jokes designed to invoke instantaneous laughter. The humorist is primarily a writer of books, newspaper or magazine articles or [[columnist|columns]], [[play (theatre)|stage]] or [[screenplay|screen]] plays, and may occasionally appear before an audience to deliver a lecture or narrate a written work. The comedian always performs for an audience, either in live performance, audio recording, radio, television, or film.<ref name=SC>{{cite web|last=Study.com|title=Humorist vs Comedian: What is the Difference?|url=https://study.com/articles/humorist_vs_comedian_what_is_the_difference.html|website=Study.com|access-date=December 8, 2017|archive-date=December 9, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171209044534/https://study.com/articles/humorist_vs_comedian_what_is_the_difference.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
[[Phil Austin]], of the comedy group [[the Firesign Theatre]], expressed his thoughts about the difference in 1993 liner notes to the ''[[Fighting Clowns]]'' album:<ref>{{Cite AV media notes |title=Fighting Clowns |year=1993 |url=http://www.firesigntheatre.com/media/media.php?item=fc-ln |access-date=February 9, 2018 |first=Phil |last=Austin |author-link=Phil Austin |type=liner notes |archive-date=December 26, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171226220607/http://firesigntheatre.com/media/media.php?item=fc-ln |url-status=dead }}</ref>
{{Blockquote
{{Quote
|text=To me, there is a great difference between a humorist and a clown, and I had hoped that life for the Firesign Theatre would have led more toward the world of Mark Twain than the world of Beepo. The humorist is a happy soul; he comments from the sidelines of life, safe behind the keyboard or pen; not forced to mold his thinking to the direct response of an audience, he has indirection on his side. He has time to think. Beepo, on the other hand, takes his chances directly facing—or mooning—the audience; a buffoon, a patsy, a performer, he is out in the open and his audience, unlike a humorist's, becomes necessarily half-friend and half-enemy.}}
==Notable humorists==
{{Mainsee|List of humorists}}
<!-- NOTE: Intent is to convert these lists to prose, with citations as appropriate -->
<!-- Sort these chronologically: dead by year of death; living by year of birth -->
===American===
<!-- Order these chronologically: DEAD humorists by year of death; LIVING humorists by year of birth -->
* Renowned [[polymath]] [[Benjamin Franklin]] (1706–1790), as a newspaper editor and printer, became one of America's first humorists, most famously for ''[[Poor Richard's Almanack]]'' published under the pen name "Richard Saunders".
*[[Mark Twain]] (pen name of Samuel Langhorn Clemens, 1835–1910) was widely considered the "greatest humorist" the U.S. ever produced, as noted in his ''New York Times'' obituary.<ref name="Obituary New York Times"/> It's a distinction that garnered wide agreement, as [[William Faulkner]] called him "the father of [[American literature]]".<ref name="faulkner"/>
* [[Ring Lardner]] (1885–1933) was a sports columnist and [[short story]] writer best known for his [[satirical]] writings about [[sport]]s, [[marriage]], and the [[theatre]].
* [[Robert Benchley]] (1889–1945), best known for his work as a newspaper columnist and film actor, began writing humorously for ''[[The Harvard Lampoon]]'' while attending [[Harvard University]], and for many years wrote essays and articles for ''[[Vanity Fair (US magazine 1913-36)|Vanity Fair]]'' and ''[[The New Yorker]]''.
* [[H. L. Mencken]] (1880–1956) was a journalist, satirist, cultural critic and scholar of [[American English]].<ref name="WVobit">{{Citation |title=Obituary |newspaper=[[Variety Obituaries|Variety]] |date=February 1, 1956}}</ref> Known as the "Sage of Baltimore", he is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prose stylists of the first half of the 20th century. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians and contemporary movements. He is known for dubbing the [[Scopes trial]] "the Monkey Trial".
* [[James Thurber]] (1894–1961) was a [[cartoonist]], author, journalist, playwright, and celebrated [[wit]], best known for his [[gag cartoon|cartoons]] and short stories published mainly in ''[[The New Yorker]]''.
* [[George S. Kaufmann]] (1889–1961) was a [[playwright]], [[theatre director]] and [[theatre producer|producer]], and [[drama critic]]. He wrote two [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] [[musical comedy|musical]]s for the [[Marx Brothers]]: ''[[The Cocoanuts (musical)|The Cocoanuts]]'' and ''[[Animal Crackers (musical)|Animal Crackers]]''.
* [[Bennett Cerf]] (1898–1971) was one of the founders of the publishing firm [[Random House]], known for his own compilations of jokes and [[pun]]s, for regular personal appearances lecturing across the United States, and for his television appearances on the panel game show ''[[What's My Line?]]''<ref name=obit>{{cite news |last=Whitman |first=Alden |title=Bennett Cerf Dies; Publisher, Writer; Bennett Cerf, Publisher and Writer, Is Dead at 73 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1971/08/29/archives/bennett-cerf-dies-publisher-writer-bennett-cerf-publisher-and.html |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=August 29, 1971 |access-date=2013-12-12}}</ref>
* [[Jean Shepherd]] (1921-1999) was a radio and literature humorist best known for writing the book ''[[In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash]]'' which was later adapted to the 1983 movie ''[[A Christmas Story]]''.
* [[Art Buchwald]] (1925–2007) wrote a [[political satire]] [[op-ed]] column for ''[[The Washington Post]]'', which was nationally syndicated in many newspapers.
* [[Garrison Keillor]] (born 1942) is an author, storyteller, voice actor, and radio personality, best known as the creator and host of the [[Minnesota Public Radio]] (MPR) show ''[[A Prairie Home Companion]]'' from 1974 to 2016. He created the fictional Minnesota town [[Lake Wobegon]], the setting of many of his books. He created and voiced the [[hardboiled]] detective parody character [[Guy Noir]] on his radio show.
* [[Gary Owens]] (1934-2015) was a long-time afternoon radio show host in Los Angeles.
===Britain and Ireland===
{{Quote box|width=29%|bgcolor=#FFFFF0|align=right|quote=[[Nancy Astor]]: "If I were your wife I would put poison in your coffee!"<br />
[[Winston Churchill]]: "And if I were your husband I would drink it."|source=—Churchill is the most cited politician in the ''Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations'' with 32 quotes.<ref>{{cite news |title=Jane Austen tops humour league for Oxford dictionary compiler |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/16/jane-austen-oxford-dictionary-humorous-quotations-gyles-brandreth |access-date=2 September 2020 |newspaper=The Guardian}}</ref>}}
[[File:Oscar Wilde 3g07095u-adjust.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Oscar Wilde]] is the most cited humorist in the ''Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations''.<ref>{{cite news |title=Oscar Wilde named most quotable figure in the English language |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/oscar-wilde-named-most-quotable-figure-in-the-english-language-1.1563213 |access-date=2 September 2020 |work=The Irish News}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Which are Oscar Wilde's wittiest quotes? |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/oct/16/oscar-wilde-wittiest-quotes |access-date=2 September 2020 |work=The Guardian}}</ref>]]
* [[James Gillray]] (1756–1815) father of British [[political cartoon]] known for his wit.<ref>{{cite news|title=Satire, sewers and statesmen: why James Gillray was king of the cartoon|url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/mar/21/satire-sewers-and-statesmen-james-gillray-king-of-cartoon|agency=The Guardian|date=2 September 2020}}</ref>
* [[Oscar Wilde]] (1854–1900) was an Irish poet and playwright known for his biting wit.
* [[Jerome K. Jerome]] (1859–1927) was an English writer and humorist, best known for the comic travelogue ''[[Three Men in a Boat]]''.
* [[P. G. Wodehouse]] (1881–1975) was one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century.<ref>{{cite book | last = Voorhees | first = Richard | contribution = P.G. Wodehouse | editor1-first = Thomas F. | editor1-last = Stayley | title = Dictionary of Literary Biography: British Novelists, 1890–1929: Traditionalists | year = 1985 | pages = [https://archive.org/details/britishnovelists0034unse/page/341 341–342] | publisher = Gale | location = Detroit | isbn = 978-0-8103-1712-3 | quote = [I]t is now abundantly clear that Wodehouse is one of the funniest and most productive men who ever wrote in English. He is far from being a mere jokesmith: he is an authentic craftsman, a wit and humorist of the first water, the inventor of a prose style which is a kind of comic poetry. | url = https://archive.org/details/britishnovelists0034unse/page/341 }}</ref>
* [[Noël Coward]] (1899–1973) was a playwright, composer, director, actor and singer.
* [[Alan Coren]] (1938–2007) could be considered the English equivalent of Bennett Cerf: a writer and satirist who was well known as a regular panelist on the BBC radio quiz ''[[The News Quiz]]'' and a team captain on BBC television's ''[[Call My Bluff]]''. Coren was also a journalist, and for almost a decade was the editor of ''[[Punch (magazine)|Punch]]'' magazine.
* [[Tom Sharpe]] (1928–2013) was a satirical novelist, best known for his ''[[Wilt (novel)|Wilt]]'' series, as well as ''[[Porterhouse Blue]]'' and ''[[Blott on the Landscape]]''.
* [[Terry Pratchett]] (1948–2015) was an author known for [[comic fantasy]], most notably a series of 41 [[existentialism|existentialist]] and [[political satire]] novels set in the ''[[Discworld]]'' universe. He was strongly influenced by Wodehouse, Sharpe, Jerome, Coren,<ref>{{cite news|publisher=Guardian Unlimited|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/24/terry-pratchett-angry-not-jolly-neil-gaiman|title=Terry Pratchett|date=September 24, 2014|access-date=September 24, 2014}}</ref> and Twain.<ref>{{cite web|publisher=Nathalie Ruas, ActuSF|url=http://www.actusf.com/spip/?article3025|title=Interview de Terry Pratchett (en Anglais) (Interview with Terry Pratchett (in English))|date=June 2002|access-date=June 19, 2007}}</ref>
===Women===
* [[Margaret Cameron (author)|Margaret Cameron]] (1867-1947), novelist, short story writer, playwright, and author of non-fiction works related to mysticism.
* [[Dorothy Parker]] (1893–1967), a writer for ''Vanity Fair'', ''[[Vogue (magazine)|Vogue]]'' and other magazines, playwright, and a close friend of Benchley, was known for her biting, satirical wit.
* [[Erma Bombeck]] (1927–1996) was a newspaper columnist and writer of 15 books who specialized in humorously describing [[Midwestern United States|midwestern]] [[suburbia|suburban]] home life.
* [[Fran Lebowitz]] (born 1950) writes sardonic [[social commentary]] from a [[New York City]] point of view.
===Other countries===
* [[Kajetan Abgarowicz]] (1856–1909) was an Armenian-Polish journalist, novelist and short story writer.
* [[Sholom Aleichem]] (1859–1916) was the pen name of the leading [[Yiddish]] author and playwright Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich, on whose stories the musical ''[[Fiddler on the Roof]]'' was based.
==Comedians who become humorists==
Sometimes a comedian will adopt a writing career and gain notability as a humorist. Some examples are:
[[Will Rogers]] (1879–1935) was a [[vaudeville]] comedian who started doing humorous political and social commentary, and became a famous newspaper columnist and radio personality during the [[Great Depression]]. He is an exception to the education rule, as he only completed a [[tenth grade#United States|tenth grade]] education.<ref name="nytobit">{{cite news| title =Adventure Marked Life of Humorist| work =[[The New York Times]]| date =August 17, 1935| url =https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1104.html| access-date =July 20, 2007| archive-date =October 15, 2009| archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20091015051028/http://nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1104.html| url-status =live}}</ref>
[[Cal Stewart]] (1856–1919) was a vaudeville comedian who created the character Uncle Josh Weathersby and toured [[circus]]es and [[medicine show]]s. He befriended Twain and Rogers, and in 1898 became the first comedian to make [[sound recordings]], on [[Edison Records]].
|year=1980
|publisher=Dorset Press
|isbn=978-0-88029-807-0
|isbn=978-0-88029-807-0}}</ref> (both with [[Robert Sherman (music critic)|Robert Sherman]]), and the autobiography ''Smilet er den korteste afstand'' ("The Smile is the Shortest Distance") with Niels-Jørgen Kaiser.<ref name="BorgeKaiser2001">{{cite book ▼|archive-date=16 October 2023
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231016110250/https://books.google.com/books?id=R7rBAAAACAAJ
|url-status=live
▲|isbn=978-0-88029-807-0}}</ref> (both with [[Robert Sherman (music critic)|Robert Sherman]]), and the autobiography ''Smilet er den korteste afstand'' ("The Smile is the Shortest Distance") with Niels-Jørgen Kaiser.<ref name="BorgeKaiser2001">{{cite book
|last1=Borge
|first1=Victor
|publisher=Gyldendal
|language=da
|isbn=978-87-00-75182-8}}</ref>
|archive-date=16 October 2023
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231016110248/https://books.google.com/books?id=RYlWAAAACAAJ
|url-status=live
}}</ref>
[[Peter Ustinov]] (1921–2004) was an English comic actor who wrote several humorous plays and film scripts.
[[Steve Martin]] (born 1945), comedian and actor, wrote ''[[Cruel Shoes]]'', a book of humorous essays and short stories, in 1977 (published 1979). He wrote his first humorous play ''[[Picasso at the Lapin Agile]]'' in 1993, and wrote various pieces in ''The New Yorker'' magazine in the 1990s. He later wrote more humorous plays and two novellas.
[[Hugh Laurie]] (born 1959) is an English comic actor who worked for many years in partnership with [[Stephen Fry]]. He is a fan of the English humorist [[P. G. Wodehouse]], and has written a Wodehouse-style novel.<ref name="actors">{{cite episode|title=Hugh Laurie|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1013111/|series=Inside the Actors Studio|series-link=Inside the Actors Studio|credits=Host: James Lipton|network=Bravo|airdate=31 July 2006|season=12|number=18|access-date=21 July 2018|archive-date=10 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170210070142/http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1013111/|url-status=live}}</ref>
▲== TheTwain as the iconic American humorist==
▲{{Undue weight section|date=March 2023}}
▲[[Mark Twain]] (pen name of Samuel Langhorn Clemens, 1835–1910) was widely considered the "greatest humorist" the U.S. ever produced, as noted in his ''New York Times'' obituary.<ref name="Obituary New York Times">{{ citeCite news |date=1910-04-22 |title=MARK TWAIN IS DEAD AT 74; End Comes Peacefully at His New England Home After a Long Illness. |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/ learning1910/ general04/ onthisday22/ bigarchives/ 0421mark-twain-is-dead-at-74-end-comes-peacefully-at-his-new-england.html | titleaccess-date= Obituary (New York Times)2023-08-28 | newspaperissn= The New York Times0362-4331 | accessarchive-date= 20092023- 1208- 2728 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230828215541/https://www.nytimes.com/1910/04/22/archives/mark-twain-is-dead-at-74-end-comes-peacefully-at-his-new-england.html |url-status=live }}</ref> It's a distinction that garnered wide agreement, as [[William Faulkner]] called him "the father of [[American literature]]".<ref name="faulkner">{{cite book |last=Jelliffe |first=Robert A. |title=Faulkner at Nagano |year=1956 |publisher=Kenkyusha, Ltd |location=Tokyo}}</ref>
▲The United States national cultural center, the [[John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts]], has chosen to award a [[Mark Twain Prize for American Humor]] annually since 1998 to individuals who have "had an impact on American society in ways similar to the distinguished 19th century novelist and essayist best known as Mark Twain".<ref name="kennedy-center1">{{cite web |url=http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/specialevents/marktwain/ |title=The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for Humor |author=<!--Not stated--> |date=2017 |publisher=Kennedy-center.org |access-date =2014-06-25 }}</ref> Despite|archive-date=2014-06-27 the name, conferral of the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize does not make the awardee a humorist|archive-url=https://web. archive.org/web/20140627025220/http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/specialevents/marktwain/ {{Asof| 2019url-status=live }} , the center has chosen to confer the prize on twenty-one comedians<ref>The Kennedy Center revoked [[Bill Cosby]]'s Mark Twain award in 2018.</ref> and one playwright;<ref name="kennedy-center1"/> only two recipients, the comedian [[Steve Martin]] and the playwright [[Neil Simon]], are commonly recognized as humorists in the sense of Twain.
==References==
==External links==
*{{cite web|last1=Henry|first1=Patrick|title=Don't Call Me a Comedian|url=https://www.patrickhenryspeaker.com/2013/04/15/dont-call-me-a-comedian/|access-date=December 7, 2017|date=April 15, 2013}}
*William Montgomery Clemens (1882), ''[https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/74088 Famous funny fellows: Brief biographical sketches of American humorists]''
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