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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.
