不合逻辑与荒谬是超现实幽默的要素。人们可以通过这两者识别出其先驱和自19世纪以来的早期作品,譬如路易斯·卡罗的《爱丽丝梦游仙境》与《爱丽丝镜中奇遇》,这两部作品都将不合逻辑和荒谬(如吸水烟的毛虫、用活火烈鸟当槌子的槌球比赛等)运用于产生幽默效果。爱德华·李尔的许多儿童故事和诗词也以超现实的手法写成,含有各种无意义的胡说八道。比如,《四小孩环游世界》(The Story of the Four Little Children Who Went Round the World,1871年)中充斥着矛盾的陈述和离奇的图片。例如:
^Lear, Edward. Nonsense Songs, Stories, Botany, and Alphabets. [2017-02-05]. (原始内容存档于2021-03-14). After a time they saw some land at a distance; and when they came to it, they found it was an island made of water quite surrounded by earth. Besides that, it was bordered by evanescent isthmuses with a great Gulf-stream running about all over it, so that it was perfectly beautiful, and contained only a single tree, 503 feet high.
^Buelens, Geert; Hendrix, Harald; Jansen, Monica (编). The History of Futurism: The Precursors, Protagonists, and Legacies. Lexington Books. 2012年. ISBN 0-739-17387-1.使用|accessdate=需要含有|url= (帮助)
^McCaffery, Larry. An interview with Donald Barthelme. Partisan Review. 1982, 49: 185. People like SJ Perelman and EB White—people who could do certain amazing things in prose. Perelman was the first true American surrealist—ranking with the best in the world surrealist movement.