A Cultural History of Comedy in the Middle Ages

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.>

About the author

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.

Product details

• Authors: Martha Bayless, Andrew McConnell Stott, E Weitz
• Assisted by: Martha Bayless (Editor), Bayless Martha (Editor), Andrew McConnell Stott (Editor of the series), Eric Weitz (Editor of the series)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 04.04.2024
• EAN: 9781350440777
• ISBN: 978-1-350-44077-7
• No. of pages: 232
• Dimensions: 168 mm x 242 mm x 14 mm
• Series: The Cultural Histories Series
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > General, dictionaries; History, HISTORY / Social History, Social & cultural history, PERFORMING ARTS / Comedy, HISTORY / Reference, PERFORMING ARTS / Reference, CE period up to c 1500, Reference works, Performing arts: comedy, Social and cultural history, Comedy and stand-up, C 500 CE To C 1000 CE