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Flatulence humor (more commonly known as fart jokes) is a form of toilet humor that refers to flatulence. It can take the form of any type of joke, practical joke device, or other off-color humor.
Two important early texts are the 5th century BC plays The Knights and The Clouds, both by Aristophanes, which contain numerous fart jokes. Another example from classical times appeared in Apocolocyntosis or The Pumpkinification of Claudius, a satire attributed to Seneca on the late Roman emperor:
He later explains he got to the afterlife with a quote from Homer: "Breezes wafted me from Ilion unto the Ciconian land."
Archeologist Warwick Ball asserts that the Roman Emperor Elagabalus played practical jokes on his guests, employing a whoopee cushion-like device at dinner parties.
In the translated version of Penguin's 1001 Arabian Nights Tales, the story "The Historic Fart" tells of a man who flees his country from the sheer embarrassment of farting at his wedding, only to return ten years later to discover that his fart had become so famous, that people used the anniversary of its occurrence to date other events. Upon learning this, he exclaimed, "Verily, my fart has become a date! It shall be remembered forever!" His embarrassment is so great, he returns to exile in India.
In a similar vein, John Aubrey's Brief Lives recounts of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford that:
One of the most celebrated incidents of flatulence humor in early English literature is in The Miller's Tale of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, which dates from the 14th century; his The Summoner's Tale has another. In the first, the character Nicholas sticks his buttocks out of a window at night and humiliates his rival Absolom by farting in his face. But Absolom gets revenge by thrusting a red-hot plough blade between Nicholas's cheeks ("ammyd the ers")
The medieval Latin joke book Facetiae by Poggio Bracciolini includes six tales about farting.
François Rabelais' tales of Gargantua and Pantagruel are laden with acts of flatulence. In Chapter XXVII of the second book, the giant, Pantagruel, releases a fart that "made the earth shake for twenty-nine miles around, and the foul air he blew out created more than fifty-three thousand tiny men, dwarves and creatures of weird shapes, and then he emitted a fat wet fart that turned into just as many tiny stooping women."
The plays of William Shakespeare include several humorous references to flatulence, including the following from Othello:
Jonathan Swift's pseudomedical pamphlet The Benefit of Farting Explain'd satirizes the garrulous nature of women and the taboo surrounding their farts in polite society by arguing that permitting women fart would make them less talkative. His anonymously published work from the same year, Arse Musica; or, The Lady’s Back Report to Don Fart-in-hand-o Puff-in dorst, mocks the public’s enthusiasm for Italian opera and lists "Fifty Two Ladies of Quality" who were under fart pseudonyms. He revisits the taboo of women farting again in his 1734 poem Cassinus and Peter.
Benjamin Franklin, in his open letter "To the Royal Academy of Farting", satirically proposes that converting farts into a more agreeable form through science should be a milestone goal of the Royal Academy.
In Mark Twain's 1876 pamphlet 1601 a cupbearer at Court who's a Diarist reports:
The Queen inquires as to the source, and receives various replies. Lady Alice says:
In the first chapter of Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, the narrator states:
The following begin with "He who...", "She who...", "They who...", "Whoever..." or "The one who ...":
Assigning blame to another can backfire: a joke about royalty has the Queen emitting flatulence, and then turning to a nearby page, exclaiming, "Arthur, stop that!" The page replies, "Yes, Your Majesty. Which way did it go?"
A connection between relationships and performing a Dutch oven has been discussed in two undergraduate student newspaper articlesPat Corran and Lara Luepke "Dutch oven" February 24, 2003 The Spectator (University of Wisconsin Eau Claire) [1] and in actress Diane Farr's relationships/humor book The Girl Code.Diane Farr. Little, Brown and Company, 2001 , , 192 pages page 172
The following art movements or concepts include flatulence:
In addition to the historical works described above, the following works of art or entertainment use or refer to flatulence humor:
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