So, I'll admit I love a good pun. Done correctly, it is humor for the clever that builds up rather than tears down. Plus, it beats an emetic in the right situation.
That said, I wonder how far back puns go. My assumption is that all languages have puns, but even still, it would be fun to know how far back they go. Is there a commonly accepted "Ur-pun" that could be considered the first in the English language?
Best Answer
Puns go way back to ancient Egypt, and are found in the bible, and as some of the earliest books translated into English, may well be the source of the "first pun in English".
Beowulf
Beowulf "is one of the very earliest poems in English and its first great literary masterpiece". It was written in Old English sometime between the 8th and 11th centuries.
A footnote in Beowulf: A New Translation for Oral Delivery (2007) says:
Bede
The footnote in Beowulf: A New Translation for Oral Delivery (2007) continues:
Bede completed the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (in English: * Ecclesiastical History of the English People*) by around 731. He wrote in Latin, but an Old English translation was made, sometime in the ninth or 10th centuries.
Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 – 1400), known as the Father of English literature, also used puns in his poetry. "Chaucer’s Cunt" shows some of his puns in Canterbury Tales (1380s–1390s):