Laughter in the Middle Ages and early modern times : epistemology of a fundamental human behavior, its meaning, and consequences / edited by Albrecht Classen.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Classen, Albrecht.

Series:

Fundamentals of medieval and early modern culture ; 5.

Fundamentals of medieval and early modern culture ; 5

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Laughter in literature.

Humor in literature.

Laughter--History.

Laughter.

Wit and humor--History.

Wit and humor.

Laughter--Philosophy.

Laughter--Religious aspects.

Wit and humor, Medieval.

Wit and humor--History and criticism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (863 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Walter de Gruyter, 2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Despite popular opinions of the 'dark Middle Ages' and a 'gloomy early modern age,' many people laughed, smiled, giggled, chuckled, entertained and ridiculed each other. This volume demonstrates how important laughter had been at times and how diverse the situations proved to be in which people laughed, and this from late antiquity to the eighteenth century. The contributions examine a wide gamut of significant cases of laughter in literary texts, historical documents, and art works where laughter determined the relationship among people. In fact, laughter emerges as a kaleidoscopic phenomenon reflecting divine joy, bitter hatred and contempt, satirical perspectives and parodic intentions. In some examples protagonists laughed out of sheer happiness and delight, in others because they felt anxiety and insecurity. It is much more difficult to detect premodern sculptures of laughing figures, but they also existed. Laughter reflected a variety of concerns, interests, and intentions, and the collective approach in this volume to laughter in the past opens many new windows to the history of mentality, social and religious conditions, gender relationships, and power structures.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Table of Contents

Laughter as an Expression of Human Natur in theMiddle Ages and the Early Modern Period: Literary, Historical, Theological, Philosophical, and Psychological Reflections. Also an Introduction

Chapter 1. Laughter in Procopius's Wars

Chapter 2. "Does God Really Laugh?" - Appropriate and Inappropriate Descriptions of God in Islamic Traditionalist Theology

Chapter 3. Laughter in Beowulf: Ambiguity, Ambivalence, and Group Identity Formation

Chapter 4. The Parodia sacra Problem and Medieval Comic Studies

Chapter 5. Women's Laughter and Gender Politics in Medieval Conduct Discourse

Chapter 6. Pushing Decorum: Uneasy Laughter in Heinrich von dem Türlîn's Diu Crône

Chapter 7. Laughter and the Comedic in a Religious Text: The Example of the Cantigas de Santa Maria

Chapter 8. The Son Rebelled and So the Father Made Man Alone: Ridicule and Boundary Maintenance in the Nizzahon Vetus

Chapter 9. Laughing at the Beast: The Judensau: Anti Jewish Propaganda and Humor from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period

Chapter 10. Yes . . . but was it funny? Cecco Angiolieri, Rustico Filippi, and Giovanni Boccaccio

Chapter 11. Curses and Laughter in Medieval Italian Comic Poetry: The Ethics of Humor in Rustico Filippi's Invectives

Chapter 12. Tromdhámh Guaire: a Context for Laughter and Audience in Early Modern Ireland

Chapter 13. Humorous Transgression in the Non Conformist fabliaux Genre: A Bakhtinian Analysis of Three Comic Tales

Chapter 14. Chaucerian Comedy: Troilus and Criseyde

Chapter 15. Laughing in and Laughing at the Old French Fabliaux

Chapter 16. Laughter and Medieval Stalls

Chapter 17. Vox populi e voce professionis: Processus juris joco serius. Esoteric Humor and the Incommensurability of Laughter

Chapter 18. "So I thought as I Stood, To Mirth Us Among": The Function of Laughter in The Second Shepherds' Play

Chapter 19. Laughing in Late Medieval Verse (mæren) and Prose (Schwänke) Narratives: Epistemological Strategies and Hermeneutic Explorations

Chapter 20. The Workings of Desire: Panurge and the Dogs

Chapter 21. Laughing Out Loud in the Heptaméron: A Reassessment of Marguerite de Navarre's Ambivalent Humor

Chapter 22. You had to be there: The Elusive Humor of the Sottie

Chapter 23. Sacred Parody in Robert Greene's Groatsworth of Wit (1592)

Chapter 24. The Comedy of the Shrew: Theorizing Humor in Early Modern Netherlandish Art

Chapter 25. The Comic Personas of Milton's Prolusion VI: Negotiating Masculine Identity Through Self Directed Humor

Chapter 26. Ridentum dicere verum (Using Laughter to Speak the Truth): Laughter and the Language of the Early Modern Clown "Pickelhering" in German Literature of the Late Seventeenth Century (1675-1700)

Chapter 27. Andreae's ludibrium: Menippean Satire in the Chymische Hochzeit

Chapter 28. The Comic Power of Illusion Allusion: Laughter, La Devineresse, and the Scandal of a Glorious Century

Chapter 29. Laughing at Credulity and Superstition in the Long Eighteenth Century

Backmatter

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Includes index.

ISBN:

9786612885150

9781282885158

1282885154

9783110245486

3110245485

OCLC:

676698348