6 x 9. 224 pgs. 2 photographs. (2003) Cloth 978-0-472-11321-7 $75.00S  Available Add to Cart Search this Book's Content About the Book Praise Look Inside Subjects Literary Studies--European Literature / Literary Studies--Literary Criticism and Theory / Medieval and Renaissance Studies

Women and Laughter in Medieval Comic Literature

Lisa Perfetti



Portrays a range of medieval heroines to ascertain how humor might have been used and enjoyed by medieval women

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About the Book

In the Middle Ages, women's laughter was associated with the body, considered base and unruly, and castigated in conduct literature, yet this behavior was still openly embraced by female literary characters. In Women and Laughter in Medieval Comic Literature, Lisa Perfetti explores a wide range of literary representation of women's laughter in the thirteenth through the sixteenth centuries.

The first of its kind, Perfetti's comparative study of medieval humor enriches recent feminist medievalist discussions by investigating laughter as a particular way of "talking back" to medieval views of women. The comic heroines that Perfetti presents offer intriguing glimpses into the cultures of women's laughter, illuminating the many contexts that shaped women's humor in the Middle Ages and illustrating the ways that their joking reflected their constrained position in male-dominated medieval societies. Acknowledging that comic works were grounded in antifeminist traditions, and that female characters were often targets of laughter for their male authors, Perfetti argues that female characters who laugh and joke suggest ways that women might have used their laughter to respond to negative pronouncements about women in medieval cultures.

Perfetti examines a variety of medieval literary texts, ranging from Chaucer's Wife of Bath to the Decameron of Boccaccio to the Thousand and One Nights, taking into account contemporary feminist theory, comic theory, and anthropological studies of humor. Her work also addresses the complex issues involved in reconstructing female subject positions in male-authored texts. Often witty, and sometimes bawdy, the laughing comic heroines brought forth in this book will engage a broad range of readers interested in medieval literature and history, as well as those intrigued by the growing field of feminist approaches to humor.

Lisa Perfetti is Assistant Professor of French at Muhlenberg College.