ebook img

Comic Medievalism: Laughing at the Middle Ages PDF

222 Pages·2014·3.295 MB·English
Save to my drive
Quick download
Download
Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.

Preview Comic Medievalism: Laughing at the Middle Ages

MEDIEVALISM MEDIEVALISM MEDIEVALISM LOU I SE D’A RC E N S MEDIEVALISM C O M The role of laughter and humour in the postmedieval citation, I interpretation or recreation of the Middle Ages has hitherto C received little attention, a gap in scholarship which this book aims to fill. Examining a wide range of comic texts and practices M across several centuries, from Don Quixote and early Chaucerian modernisation through to Victorian theatre, the Monty Python E films, television and the experience of visiting sites of ‘heritage D tourism’ such as the Jorvik Viking Museum at York, it identifies what has been perceived as uniquely funny about the Middle I E Ages in different times and places, and how this has influenced ideas not just about the medieval but also about modernity. V Tracing the development and permutations of its various A registers, including satire, parody, irony, camp, wit, jokes, and L farce, the author offers fresh and amusing insight into comic I medievalism as a vehicle for critical commentary on the present S as well as the past, and shows that for as long as there has been M medievalism, people have laughed at and with the Middle Ages. LOUISE D’ARCENS is Associate Professor in English Literatures at the University of Wollongong. Cover: Unknown Artist, Laughing Jester, Photo © Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. L C O M I C M E D I E VA L I S M O U I Laughing S E at the D ’ A Middle R C Ages E N S an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF (GB) and 668 Mt Hope Ave, Rochester NY 14620-2731 (US) www.boydellandbrewer.com Volume IV Comic Medievalism ISSN 2043–8230 Series Editors Karl Fugelso Chris Jones Medievalism aims to provide a forum for monographs and collections devoted to the burgeoning and highly dynamic multi-disciplinary field of medievalism studies: that is, work investigating the influence and appearance of ‘the medieval’ in the society and culture of later ages. Titles within the series will investigate the post-medieval construction and mani- festations of the Middle Ages – attitudes towards, and uses and meanings of, ‘the medieval’ – in all fields of culture, from politics and international relations, literature, history, archi- tecture, and ceremonial ritual to film and the visual arts. It welcomes a wide range of topics, from historiographical subjects to revivalism, with the emphasis always firmly on what the idea of ‘the medieval’ has variously meant and continues to mean; it is founded on the belief that scholars interested in the Middle Ages can and should communicate their research both beyond and within the academic community of medievalists, and on the continuing relevance and presence of ‘the medieval’ in the contemporary world. New proposals are welcomed. They may be sent directly to the editors or the publishers at the addresses given below. Professor Karl Fugelso Dr Chris Jones Boydell & Brewer Ltd Art Department School of English PO Box 9 Towson University University of St Andrews Woodbridge 3103 Center for the Arts St Andrews Suffolk IP12 3DF 8000 York Road Fife KY16 9AL UK Towson, MD 21252–0001 UK USA Previous volumes in this series I Anglo-Saxon Culture and the Modern Imagination edited by David Clark and Nicholas Perkins II Medievalist Enlightenment: From Charles Perrault to Jean-Jacques Rousseau Alicia C. Montoya III Memory and Myths of the Norman Conquest Siobhan Brownlie Comic Medievalism Laughing at the Middle Ages Louise D’Arcens D. S. BREWER © Louise D’Arcens 2014 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner The right of Louise D’Arcens to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 First published 2014 D. S. Brewer, Cambridge ISBN 978 1 84384 380 1 D. S. Brewer is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620–2731, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. This publication is printed on acid-free paper For Robert, Eva and Mimi with love and thanks Contents Illustrations viii Acknowledgements ix I The Set Up Introduction: Laughing at, with and in the Middle Ages 3 1 The Cervantean Paradigm: Comedy, Madness and Meta-Medievalism 23 in Don Quixote II Oldies But Goodies: Comic Recovery 2 Scraping the Rust from the Joking Bard: Chaucer in the Age of Wit 43 3 Medievalist Farce as Anti-Totalitarian Weapon: Dario Fo as Modern 68 Giullare III Hit and Myth: Performing and Parodying Medievalism 4 Pre-Modern Camp and Faerie Legshows: Travestying the Middle Ages 91 on the Nineteenth-Century Stage 5 Up the Middle Ages: Performing Tradition in Comic Medievalist Cinema 112 IV That’s Edutainment: Comedy and History 6 ‘The Past is a Different and Fairly Disgusting Country’: The Middle Ages 139 in Recent British ‘Jocumentary’ 7 Smelling the Past: Medieval Heritage Tourism and the Phenomenology 161 of Ironic Nostalgia Afterword: Laughing into the Future 181 Bibliography 185 Index 201 Illustrations Figure 1 The joy of Francis and his brothers at the acceptance of their Rule, 82 by Dario Fo, from Francis, the Holy Jester, January 2014 performance. Reproduced with permission of the Archivio Franca Rame Dario Fo Figure 2 Miss Maud Boyd as Robin Hood, The Sketch Magazine, 110 27 December 1893 Reproduced with the permission of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Figure 3 Tony Robinson as a medieval purple maker, Season 2, Episode 2 142 of The Worst Jobs in History. Reproduced with the permission of Spire Films Figure 4 ‘Get Face to Face with Vikings’, from Jorvik Viking Centre 164 webpage. Reproduced with permission of the York Archaeological Trust Figure 5 The Viking ‘Ghost’, Drifa, Jorvik Viking Centre display. 166 Reproduced with permission of the York Archaeological Trust Figure 6 The Smell Map, Jorvik Viking Centre guide book. 170 Reproduced with permission of the York Archaeological Trust The author and publishers are grateful to all the institutions and individuals listed for permission to reproduce the materials in which they hold copyright. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders; apologies are offered for any omission, and the publishers will be pleased to add any necessary acknowledge- ment in subsequent editions. Acknowledgements I am fortunate to have been able to complete this book as part of an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship, which I received for the project FT120100931 ‘Comic Medievalism and the Modern World’. The ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions has also supported me with Associate Investigator funding, which has enabled me to run a seminar directly relevant to the subject of this book. Some of the preliminary research for this study was undertaken while I was the recipient of a collaborative ARC Discovery Grant. I would like to acknowledge the support of the ARC in enabling me to complete a number of large projects over the last several years. I wish also to thank the University Research Committee at the University of Wollongong for awarding me a ‘near-miss’ grant that assisted my research and the preparation of this manuscript. I have numerous colleagues and friends in the field of medievalism studies whose stimulating conversation, and generous and astute suggestions, have improved my thinking, research and writing. There are many, many people who could be named, but I will limit myself to thanking Andrew Lynch, Stephanie Trigg, John Ganim, Chris Jones, David Matthews, Stephen Knight, Eileen Joy, Clare Monagle, Lawrence Warner, Kim Wilkins, Clare Bradford and Narelle Campbell. In the area of film studies, I would like to thank Adrian Martin and Gino Moliterno for their guidance and helpful conversations, and for helping me track down the wonderful Brancaleone films. My colleagues at the University of Wollongong, especially my colleagues in the English Literatures Program, are a true pleasure to work with. I would like to thank all of my Program colleagues for being consistently collegial, un-egoistic and fun to be around. Leigh Dale in particular has been a source of constant encouragement, as well as being the voice of sanity at some key moments. Thanks also to Noel Broadhead for assistance in seeking image permissions. At Boydell & Brewer, I would like to thank Caroline Palmer for her guid-

See more

The list of books you might like

Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.