Laughter and Awkwardness in Late Medieval England

Social Discomfort in the Literature of the Middle Ages

David Watt (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

208 Seiten

2023
Bloomsbury Academic (Verlag)
978-1-78831-430-5 (ISBN)

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'We live,’ according to Adam Kotsko, ‘in an awkward age.’ While this condition may present some challenges, it may also help us to be more attuned to awkwardness in other ages. This book pairs medieval texts with twenty-first century films or television programmes to explore what the resonance between them can tell us about living together in an awkward age.

In this nuanced and engaging study, David Watt focuses especially, but not exclusively, on the 15th century, which seems to intervene awkwardly in the literary trajectory between Chaucer and the Renaissance. This book’s hypothesis is that the social discomfort depicted and engendered by writers as diverse as Thomas Hoccleve, Margery Kempe, and Sir Thomas Malory is a feature rather than a flaw. Laughter and Awkwardness in Late Medieval England explains that these authors have a great deal in common with other fifteenth-century authors, who generated embodied experiences of social discomfort in a range of genres by adopting and adapting literary techniques used by their predecessors and successors in slightly different ways. Like the twenty-first century texts with which they are paired, the late-medieval texts that feature in this book use the relationship between laughter and awkwardness to ask what it means to live with each other and how we can learn to live with ourselves.

David Watt is Professor in the Department of English, Theatre, Film & Media, at the University of Manitoba, Canada, where he also serves as head of his department.

List of Figures
List of Abbreviations
Note on Quotations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. When everything goes pear-shaped: Laughter and Awkwardness in Augustine’s Confessions
2. Elated or Gassy? Between Affect and Emotion in The Luttrell Psalter
3. May this be true? The Awkwardness of Accepting Grace in Pearl
4. Creating Tension: Laughter and Anger in Cleanness
5. Virtuous even if it Displeases: Patience
6. The Games People Play: Laughter and Belonging in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
7. All Shall Be Well: Laughter and Belonging in Julian of Norwich’s Revelations of Divine Love
8. Too Much Information? Suggestive Diction in ‘I Have a Gentil Cock’
9. Does this stress make me look fat? Awkward Questions in Thomas Hoccleve’s La Male Regle
10. You’re so vain, you probably think this Psalm is about you: Saving Face in Thomas Hoccleve’s Series
11. Great Cause to Laugh: Conversation and Compassion in The Book of Margery Kempe
12. Sing with us, with a merry cheer! The Awkwardness of Going Along With It in Mankind
13. Ever Froward: Standing up for the Audience in The Chester Play of Noah’s Flood
14. Disappointing Expectations: Laughter, Awkwardness, and the End of Sir Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur
Conclusion: An Awkward Age?
References
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	17.08.2020
Reihe/Serie	New Directions in Medieval Studies
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Mittelalter
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Kulturgeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-10	1-78831-430-1 / 1788314301
ISBN-13	978-1-78831-430-5 / 9781788314305
Zustand	Neuware