Abstract
This article argues for a new approach to early modern Dutch humour. Where existing research on this topic usually focuses on either the social practice of laughter or specific comical genres like farce, this new approach puts the aesthetics of humour upfront. Looking at humour aesthetically means that one departs from the formal existence of comical texts, and asks how aspects like rhetoric, structure and style make a text humorous within a given context. When applying this approach to the early modern Dutch situation, the first conclusion is that what we today call humour is best captured by the terms “boertig” and “kluchtig”, which back then had a much broader and more neutral meaning than in contemporary Dutch. The second conclusion is that this humorous form – “het boertige en het kluchtige” – in and of itself generates certain (ideological) meanings, which is demonstrated by an analysis of the satirical text De menuet en de dominees pruik (1772) by Elisabeth Wolff.
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