A Cultural History of Comedy in the Middle Ages

by Martha Bayless (Editor), Andrew McConnell Stott (Editor), Eric Weitz (Editor)

Overview

Comedy and humor flourished in manifold forms in the Middle Ages. This volume, covering the period from 1000 to 1400 CE, examines the themes, practice, and effects of medieval comedy, from the caustic morality of principled satire to the exuberant improprieties of many wildly popular tales of sex and trickery. The analysis includes the most influential authors of the age, such as Chaucer, Boccaccio, Juan Ruiz, and Hrothswitha of Gandersheim, as well as lesser-known works and genres, such as songs of insult, nonsense-texts, satirical church paintings, topical jokes, and obscene pilgrim badges. The analysis touches on most of the literatures of medieval Europe, including a discussion of the formal attitudes toward humor in Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions. The volume demonstrates the many ways in which medieval humor could be playful, casual, sophisticated, important, subversive, and even dangerous.

Each chapter takes a different theme as its focus: form, theory, praxis, identities, the body, politics and power, laughter, and ethics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350187610
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	12/30/2021
Series:	The Cultural Histories Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	232
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Martha Bayless is Professor of Medieval Studies and director of the Folklore and Public Culture Program at the University of Oregon, USA.
Martha Bayless is Professor of English at the University of Oregon, USA, where she specialises in medieval humour and popular culture. She is the author of Parody in the Middle Ages: The Latin Tradition, Sin and Filth in Medieval Culture (1997), and the forthcoming Fifteen Medieval Latin Parodies.
Andrew McConnell Stott is Dean of Undergraduate Education and Professor of English at the Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, University of Southern California, USA. A writer on British popular culture from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, his publications include Comedy (2005, 2014); The Pantomime Life of Joseph Grimaldi: Laughter, Madness, and the Story of Britain's Greatest Comedian (2009); and The Poet and the Vampyre: The Curse of Byron and the Birth of Literature's Greatest Monsters (2014).
Eric Weitz is Associate Professor of Drama at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Series Preface
Editor's Acknowledgments

Introduction: Comedy in the Middle Ages: Answers and Questions, Martha Bayless (University of Oregon, USA)

1. Form: Its Expressions and Manifestations, Olle Ferm (Stockholm University, Sweden)
2. Theory: Comedy Humbled and Exalted, Johan Verberckmoes (KU Leuven, Belgium)
3. Praxis: The Location and Performance of Comedy, Katherine A. Brown (University of Notre Dame, USA)
4. Identity, John DuVal (University of Arkansas, USA)
5. The Body: Unstable, Gendered, Theorized, Susan Signe Morrison (Texas State University, USA)
6. Politics: Comic Power, Foolish Men, and Holy Women, Max Harris (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA)
7. Laughter: A Comedic Approach, Sebastian Coxon (University College London, UK)
8. Ethics: Ethical Dimensions of Medieval Comedy, Nicolino Applauso (Loyola University Maryland, USA and Morgan State University, USA)

Notes
References
Index