Comic Provocations: Exposing the Corpus of Old French Fabliaux [Hardcover]

This collection explores how Old French fabliaux disrupt literal and figurative bodies. Essays cover theoretical issues including fragmentation and multiplication, social anxiety and excessive circulation, performative productions and creative formations, to trace the competing consequences that arise from this literary body's unsettling capacity.Note on Texts and Translations Foreword; R.H.Bloch Introduction: The Provocative Body of the Fabliaux; H.A.Crocker PART I Literalism and Eunuchs of God in the Fabliaux; J.Tschann The Comic Uses of Torture and Violence in the Fabliaux: When Comedy Crosses the Line; L.Tracy Coprus [sic] Christi: the Scatological Tales of the Old French Fabliaux; S.Nayar PART II Go-Betweens: the Old Woman and the Function of Obscenity in the Old French Fabliau; N. Sidhu Dressing the Undressed: Clothing and Social Structure in Old French Fabliaux; M.Leech The Lewd and the Ludic: Female Pleasure in the Fabliaux; L.Perfetti PART III Creative Choices: Notes on Translating Old French Fabliaux; N.E. Dubin Mobility and Resentment in a World of Flux: Arrogance in the Old French Fabliaux; K.Petkov Conflicting Economies in the Fabliaux; C.Sheridan PART IV Posterity of the Fabliaux: Georges Feydeau and Marcel Proust; S.Bloom Chaucer's French Accent: Gardens and Sex-Talk in the 'Shipman's Tale; P.G.Beidler Be Careful What You Wish For: Folkloric Caution in Les .iiii. Souhais Saint-Martin; E.Friedrich Notes on Contributors

'Comic Provocations provides new readings of an ever-popular genre, combining scholarly rigor with provocatively enjoyable prose that at times rivals the fabliaux themselves. Accessible to fabliaux readers at all levels, these essays are particularly helpful for rethinking the genre in terms of the bodies they describe. A welcome addition to fabliaux studies.' Lynn Ramey, Associate Professor of French, Vanderbilt University