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Paper short abstract

Silver Senryū are short poems written by and for older people in Japan. This paper examines how humour works in the form, using humour theory and the GTVH to show how brevity, incongruity, and self-directed satire articulate ageing through shared moments of laughter.

Paper long abstract

Silver Senryū, senryu poems written by and for older people, have become increasingly visible in contemporary Japan. The humour they rely on has, however, received limited critical attention. Existing discourse tends to focus on social context, demographic change, or the positive effects of creativity, while paying less attention to how humour actually works within the poems themselves. This paper offers a literary analysis of humour in Silver Senryū, asking how these short texts produce laughter, recognition, and emotional resonance.

Building on earlier corpus-based research, the paper shifts the focus from thematic classification to humour as a poetic practice. It examines how Silver Senryū use incongruity, satire, and self-directed humour to articulate experiences of ageing from an internal perspective, rather than framing later life through idealised or external viewpoints. Particular attention is given to how bodily decline, memory lapses, medical routines, and the nearness of death are rendered ordinary and laughable, without tipping into sentimentality or despair.

Methodologically, the analysis draws on humour theory, with reference to the General Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH). The GTVH offers a flexible framework for analysing how humour is structured at multiple levels, including script opposition, logical mechanisms, and narrative strategy. Applied to senryū, it allows for close attention to how minimal verbal cues activate incongruity and guide readerly interpretation. Rather than treating humour as an effect that can be inferred from topic alone, this approach foregrounds how humour is produced through form, wording, and shared cultural knowledge.

The paper further argues that the senryū form enables a distinctive mode of humour. Its brevity and lack of explanation produce moments of laughter that are fleeting but recognisable, grounded in shared experience. Rather than asking whether humour functions therapeutically or improves wellbeing, the analysis explores what humour allows ageing speakers to do narratively: how it affords agency, preserves dignity, and creates a sense of community.

By situating Silver Senryū within broader discussions of humour and ageing, this paper contributes to literary understandings of the form as a genre that is able to articulate later life through small, but resonant, acts of laughter.