Steve KnaussSeeking to make the most of my semester in Britain, I wisely consulted pre-departure etiquette with well-traveled Americans in hopes of avoiding any unforeseen faux pas. Although they all assured me that I would find the English to be incredibly kind and helpful, I was somewhat surprised that nearly every veteran traveler made a point of forewarning me of one particular British idiosyncrasy. British humor, it was said, is direct and unrefined, and has the propensity to confuse or anger those unacquainted with it.
Naturally, I paid no attention to these exhortations, since conceit alone has convinced me that I have an agile sense of humor that is capable of holding its own in any culture. But after a tourist weekend in London, I must admit, these warnings were well advised. I don’t think a hundred such consultations could’ve adequately prepared me for what was to come.
British humor is essentially a quick-witted gallows humor that is both unrivaled in its critical spirit and fearless in its audacity. The American tailor-made shock jokes that are designed to give the FCC a heart attack are unlikely to raise even an eyebrow across the pond. Perhaps a few examples are in order for illustrative purposes.
Like all good foreign sadists, my first stop in the big city was the Tower of London. I decided to take the Yeomen Warder’s tour, unaware that I was paying for a crash course in British humor. Our first stop was Traitor’s Gate, the infamous entrance to the Tower that all doomed prisoners had to pass through on their road to death. At this point the Yeoman Warder decided to explain the story of the Princes of the Tower, two adolescent sons of Edward IV who mysteriously disappeared from their bedroom, likely victims of kidnap and murder. After going into gruesome speculative detail about what may have been their fate, the Yeoman turned directly to a six-year old in the audience and shouted: “I want you to think about that every night before you go to sleep, boy!”
But British humor runs far deeper in the culture than the habit of one tour guide forever ruining a child’s life. In fact, even the guide remarked his amazement when he informed us that Queen Elizabeth I shared a resting ground with her half sister, Queen Mary I. I have no idea what cynical body decided to bury these two women, who hated each other more than life itself, together in eternal somnolence. Yet it is telling that the area considered more than any other to be off-limits for humor in America is precisely where the English appear to make conscious statements of irony.
Continuing with the theme of burials, I had the opportunity to visit Highgate Cemetery in northern London. Buried at Highgate are hundreds of Britain’s most famous scientists, statesmen and artists. The most notable among the dead are two giants of nineteenth century sociology: Karl Marx and Herbert Spencer. Though both graves were at the top of my to-see list, I nearly keeled over upon learning that Marx and Spencer are buried at the same site, directly facing each other!
Surely it is no coincidence, and surely I am not the only one to find it remarkable that the founders of Marxism and Social Darwinism, two irreconcilably hostile philosophies that were to have such an affect on twentieth century history, share eternal resting grounds. Only the squalid nature of British humor would allow such madness. Say whatever you want to about the French, but I would stake my life on the guess that Jean-Paul Marat does not share a gravesite with Louis XVI, nor is Abraham Lincoln interred with Jefferson Davis. The ability to make light of a life and death social struggle encapsulated in two men by burying them together is distinctly British.
Steve Knauss may be contacted at sknauss@ut.edu.