This dissertation has been 64—6945 microfilmed exactly as received PEARCY, Roy James, 1931- HUMOR IN THE FABLIAUX. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1963 Language and Literature, general University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan Copyright by Roy James Pearcy l°6/i HUMOR IN THE FABLIAUX DISSERTATION Presented In P artial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Roy James Pearcy, B.A. (Hons.) ****** The Ohio State University 1963 Approved by J. * Adviser Department of English ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to Professor Francis L. Utley, who directed th is d issertatio n , for his gracious and w illing assistance, and for his sus­ taining and helpful in terest throughout the progress of the work. Thanks are also due to Professor Morton W, Bloomfield, now at Harvard, who helped me prepare for the General Examination, and to Professor Robert M, E strich, the chairman of my department, for aid and counsel in matters too many and varied to enumerate, I am also much indebted to The Graduate School of The Ohio State University for financial assistance afforded me in the form of a University Fellowship from January to June 1962, and Summer Fellowships in I960 and 1963. ii CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS..................................................................................... i i Chapter I INTRODUCTION..............................................................................1 II RELATION OP PLOT AND COMIC ELEMENTS IN THE FABLIAUX......................................................................38 III THE INTRODUCTION:SATIRE IN THE FABLIAUX.................61 IV THE CORE:HUMOR IN THE FABLIAUX.....................................98 V THE CONCLUSION: IRONY IN THE FABLIAUX......................127 VI HUMOR AND DICTION IN THE FABLIAUX............................148 VII CHAUCER13 FABLIAU-TALES..................................................168 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY......................................................................198 AUTOBIOGRAPHY....................................................................................... 203 i i i CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The fabliaux have always held an important place in the study of themes and th eir migrations from country to country, which is the particular concern of the folklor­ is ts , Some one hundred and sixty^ tales in rhymed octo­ syllabic couplets appeared in Northern Prance and England between the late tw elfth and early fourteenth centuries, a confluence of streams which can be traced back through the obscure substrata of oral trad itio n to the popular lite ra tu re of classical antiquity and the orient, forward through the works of such figures as La Fontaine, Moli&re, and Maupassant to the present day. Early accounts of the fabliaux dealt predominantly with th eir importance for 2 th is branch of lite ra ry studies. It remained for Joseph B6dier to render the Cartesian service of postulating For the purpose of th is study I accept the canon established in the most recent major c ritic a l work on the fabliaux which deals at some length with the problem of d efin itio n of the genre: Per Nykrog.Les Fabliaux(Copen- hagen,1957),PP.5-19,311-324. p See, for example, John Dunlop.The History of Fiction {'Edinburgh. 1814 3; Victor L eclerc,,'Les Fabliaux,'1 in Hlsfcoire L itt6raire de la Prance.X X III(Paris,1856)t C. Aubertin.H istoire de la langue et de la litte ra tu re Francaise au noyen age. . . . I-III(P a ris ,1875-1878J; and cn. Formentin.Assal but lea Fabliaux fr^ n g ^ stS t.Etionne, 1877). two d istin ct approaches to a c ritic a l evaluation of the * fabliaux, which we might designate the diachronic and the synchronic. Bddier's study divides sharply, dia­ chronic concerns taking precedence in the f ir s t p art, "La question de l'o rig in e et de la propagation des fabliaux"; synchronic dominating in the second, "Etude littd ra ire des fabliaux". There is very l i ttl e in ter­ relatio n between the two p arts. The f ir s t division attempts to minimize the importance of source studies in understanding the French fabliaux as we have them by attacking d irectly the theory of oriental origin strong- iL ly favored at the time by Gaston Paris, His second division begins by advocating a novel approach which would obviate the need to consider sources at a ll: Une dpoque est responsable des rd cits dont elle s 'e s t amusde, neme si elle ne les a pas Inventss. En effet ,~ e s t - i l ndcessaire de le marquer?— bien que la plupart des conies puissent inddfiniment circu ler, chaque recueil de contes = rdvdle pourtant un esp rit d istin ct. ^ ^Joseph Bddier.Les Fabliaux(Paris.lQ 93). The view is presented fu lly in "Les Fabliaux," L ittdrature francaise au mo.ven age(Paris.lQ 88). ^B6dier,p.290. Nykrog's recognition of the import­ ance of th is statement as a c ritic a l principle is worth quoting:"Le mdrite principal de cette derniere partie de 1 'etude de Bddier e s t. . ,d ’avoir signald avec force que les fabliaux posent un probldme, et d'avoir prd- concisd la mdthode qui doit mener a la solution de ce probldme. . . . consider©r un genre littd ra ire propre k une ipoque ddtermlnde, comme 1 'expression de l 'i t a t d 'esp rit de son publique historique. 3 The major concern of Bddier's synchronic study of the fabliaux is an attempt to explain the nature of the sp irit they reveal, which he does by tracing relation­ ships between them and the literary and social back­ ground of the thirteenth century when they chiefly flourished. The present study w ill be of this type. It has been undertaken in the belief that a thorough analysis of the humor of the fabliaux can illuminate the sp irit which animates them in ways not previously recognized. In attempting to define the nature of the fabliaux as a literary form, Bddier firs t pointed out certain relationships between the fabliaux and other literary genres prevalent in the thirteenth century; he then distinguished the fabliaux from these others by associating them with a certain social group, the newly ascendant middle class: La moitld des oeuvres littd ra ire s du XIII6 sidcle sont animdes du mdme souffle que les fabliaux. Ils ne sont point des accidents singuliers, ndgllgeables; mais i l exists touts une littd ratu re apparentde, od ils tiennent leur place ddterminde, comme un anneau dans une chalne, comme un nombre dans une sdrie.CPage 339.) As evidence for the close a ffilia tio n between the fabl­ iaux and other literary forms, Bddier cited what he called the "mdpris brutal des femmes"(page 390), typic­ al not only of the fabliaux but of countless d its aorauxt of the Roman de Renart. and of Jean de Meun's continuation of the Roman de la Rose; the same strange h o s tility directed against individual members of religious in stitu tio n s by w riters su fficie n tly devout not to question the v irtu es of the in stitu tio n s them­ selves; and the recurrence of th at s p irit of light mockery, unrestrained in its childlike enthusiasm by a r tis tic or moral pretention, which animates both the fabliaux the beast fables(pages 362-363). This, says Bddier, is one side of the lite ra tu re of the th irteen th century, the side with which the fabliaux show d irect sympathy of in sp iratio n . But the place of the fabliaux in the th irteen th century is shown as clearly when we compare them with the other side of the lite ra ry scene, for here we have, not indeed a sympathy of inspiration, but a detailed and complete antipathy between the re a l­ is tic s p irit of the fabliaux, the Roman de Renart. and the second part of the Roman de la Rose on the one hand * and the id e a listic s p irit of the troubadour ly ric and the romances of the Round Table on the other(pages 365- 368). This dichotomy is to be explained, according to Bddier, by the simple fact that the two groups of lite r - ^"Voici que s'opposent soudain a la gauloiserie, la prdciositd; a la derision, le rdve; & la v ilen ie, la courtoisie; au mdpris narquois des femmes, le culte de la dame et 1*exaltation mystique des compagnons d*Arthur aux ra ille rie s antimonacales, la puretd des ldgendes pieuses...& 1 'observation railleu se de la vie commune et famili&re. l'envolde a perte d'haleine verB le pays de Fd e r ie ." (Page 365.) ary works correspond to two d is tin c t p u b lic s, as sharply divided so c ia lly as the lite r a r y works are a e s th e tic a lly . The romances of the Round Table, w ith th e ir reverence of women, th e ir su p ern atu ral trap p in g s, and th e ir idealism , r e f le c t the world of ch iv alry . The fab liau x , w ith th e ir irrev ere n ce, th e ir iro n ic view of l i f e , and th e ir down- to -e a rth realism , r e f le c t the world of the b o u rg eo is: XI e st ex act, en e f f e t, que le s fab liau x sont originairem ent 1*oeuvre des bourgeois. Le genre naquit le jo ur oti se fu t vraim ent c o n stitu te une claBse bourgeois©; i l f le u r it concurrement a to u te une l i t e r a t u r e bourgeois© . (Page 371.) * The fab liau x evolved from the middle c la s s , fo r i t and by i t , says B6dier. The statem ent is c a te g o ric a l, but very l i t t l e evidence to support i t is forthcom ing, beyond the debat­ able assumption of chronological coincidence, which, as Nykrog p o in ts out, can be extended to cover "toute la littd r a tu r e co u rto ise, n a rra tiv e comme ly riq u e , en langue d'oil'lCpage x l) . B6dier is forced to recognize, indeed, in the face of- considerable evidence, th a t the d iv isio n of n e ith e r so c ia l c la sse s nor lite r a r y modes i s as sharp as he i n i t i a l l y suggests. Almost from it s in cep tio n the c h iv a lric e p ic, and la te r the romance, showed signs of "contam ination" bv the s p ir it of the fa b lia u x .^ Furtherm ore, i t is c le a r from the prologues ?To th is source B6dier would a ttrib u te the comic bo astin g in the Ffelerinage de Charlemagne & Jerusalem , the obscenity in the narod.y chanson de gesbe A udigier.