Toward a Theoretical and Analytical Framework for the Study of Sexual Humour in Chaucerian Fabliaux

Abstract

The present study offers an examination of laughter in comic texts from a range of fabliau in The Canterbury Tales, framing them within discussions of medieval views of eroticism that draw from religion, medicine, philosophy, and literature. These texts feature males and females who laugh and make jokes in sexual themes and plots which involve deception and sexual misbehaviour. First, the article explores medieval attitudes toward laughter in religious, medical treatises and literature. It then discusses a number of predominant themes in the Reeve’s Tale, the Miller’s Tale, the Merchant’s Tale and the Shipman’s Tale in the context of Chaucer’s the Canterbury Tales to try to tease out how these particular themes may have worked to bring erotic pleasure to the reader of the comic texts. The comic themes discussed in this article are briefly cuckoldry, culinary humour, exposure of the genitals and farting. These subjects and how they are represented are very different from modern erotic representations. They are based both on a different understanding of the body and on a different social and cultural landscape, and their complexity resists simple interpretations about misogyny or functionality that are suggested by feminist perspectives on sexual humour. All quotations from the Canterbury Tales are taken from The Riverside Chaucer, edited by Larry D. Benson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).