Laughter in Medieval English Drama: A Critique of Modernizing and Historical Analyses

• Published in: Comparative drama 2002-04, Vol.36 (1/2), p.1-19
• Main Author: Diller, Hans-Jürgen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Audiences; Bakhtin, Mikhail; Carnivals; Criticism and interpretation; Cultural customs; Cycle plays; Drama; Drama, Medieval; Dramatic criticism; Dramatic theory; English drama; English language; Historical Records; Humanity; Humor and Wit; Language history; Laughter; Medieval Drama; Mercy; Middle Ages; Morality Plays; Mystery plays; Otherness; Reception History; Religion; Religious drama; Social aspects; Social Behavior; Social criticism & satire; Social history; Stagings; Theater; Theater criticism; Theater History; Wakefield Master; Writers
• ISSN: 0010-4078; 1936-1637; 1936-1637
• DOI: 10.1353/cdr.2002.0006

The frequent references by Mikhail Bakhtin and his followers to the "medieval culture of laughter" suggest that everyone was meant to laugh, but in the records of medieval drama, the instances in which someone had to laugh are far more frequent. One must assume that there were numerous scenes at which the audience was meant to laugh, even though cogent proof of this is unlikely to be found in historical records. To discover such occasions, it is necessary to interpret the dramatic texts themselves. The staging conditions of the plays of the so-called "Wakefield Master," who was once celebrated as the great realist of medieval English drama, and the late-15th-century morality play "Mankind," are highly controversial and, in the absence of related documentary evidence, are likely to remain so. In the whole of medieval English drama, there is only one group of plays, the York cycle, whose staging and reception can be inferred from a large number of contemporary records.