The Comic Text

Patterns and Images in the Old French Fabliaux
Erscheinungsjahr 2000
ISBN: 978-90-420-0429-0
Verlag: Brill | Rodopi

Buch, Englisch, Band 186, 312 Seiten, Format (B × H): 150 mm x 220 mm, Gewicht: 572 g

Reihe: Faux Titre

This book offers a close analysis of the Old French fabliaux, that medieval corpus of short comic tales in narrative verse celebrated (sometimes notorious) for their irreverence and sexual content. It picks out certain key images - such as gambling, illness, and damnation - which develop into themes and motifs running through all the texts, and which add layers of ironic patterning to the essential subject-matter and narrative of each fabliau. These elements, in many respects the 'small print' of the joke, furnish the comic text with many rhythms and echoes, all contributing to the ludic, adversarial nature of the text. They are extremely flexible, serving as a rhetoric of depiction that extends from broad comic motif to the lightest triggering of a mocking smile.
This volume will be of interest to all students of medieval culture, Old French literature, and the development of the short or comic narrative.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Levy, Brian J.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Theaterwissenschaft
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturgeschichte und Literaturkritik
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction. A Fabliau Bestiary; The Dice and the Dance; In Deep Water; The Devil to Pay; The Best Medicine; Comic Inversion and Fortune's Wheel; Index of Fabliaux; Bibliography.