A Cognitive Stylistic Approach to Humor in Norsemen: Mental Wellbeing in the Viking Age

Humor is rooted within being human. According to Nash (1985), humor is a fundamental trait of humanity, he goes on to equate it with “the power of speech, the mathematical gift, the gripping thumb, the ability to make tools,” humor is a trait of being human (p. 1). Humor is examined in many fields, including psychology and linguistics (Attardo, 1994). This paper uses a cognitive stylistic approach to study humor by observing its building blocks or “narrative worlds” also known as “humorous worlds” (Marszalek, 2013). This study explores the humorous worlds in Norsemen, in which previous knowledge of the Vikings is required to unlock and grasp humor in this series. Norsemen is a Norwegian series that depicts the Vikings in a humorous manner showing them as men and women who are very skilled at raiding and killing but often failing at navigating their emotional and mental wellbeing. This study utilizes the premise that prior knowledge of culture, age, objects, characters, etc. has a great impact on understanding and appreciating humor. This paper argues that humor in Norsemen stems from an incongruity in these Norsemen’s lives between pillaging and raiding on the one hand and mitigating issues of mental wellbeing and inclusion on the other. This incongruity tests our usual schema of the Vikings, and it refreshes this schema causing a humorous effect.