Were the Middle Ages funny? To answer that question, Mary Wellesley and Irina Dumitrescu hunt through some of the rudest, silliest and surprising works in English literature in search of the Medieval sense of humour.
Mary Wellesley and Irina Dumitrescu are both writers and historians, and regular contributors to the London Review of Books.
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Were the Middle Ages funny? To answer that question, Mary Wellesley and Irina Dumitrescu hunt through some of the rudest, silliest and surprising works in English literature in search of the Medieval sense of humour.
Mary Wellesley and Irina Dumitrescu are both writers and historians, and regular contributors to the London Review of Books.
Sign up to listen to this series ad free and all our subscriber series in full, including Mary and Irina's twelve-part series Medieval Beginnings:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/medlolapplesignup
In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/medlolscsignup
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Were the Middle Ages funny? In this bonus series for 2024, Irina Dumitrescu and Mary Wellesley begin their quest for the medieval sense of humour with Chaucer’s 'Miller’s Tale', a story that is surely still (almost) as funny as when it was written six hundred years ago. But who is the real butt of the joke? Mary and Irina look in detail at the mechanics of the plot and its needless but pleasurable complexity, and consider the social significance of clothes and pubic hair in the tale.
You can also watch a video version of this episode: https://youtu.be/_o1GdU5-O8U?si=ca_I-wnwR1HVGMqV
Sign up to listen to this series ad free and all our subscriber series in full, including Mary and Irina's twelve-part series Medieval Beginnings:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/medlolapplesignup
In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/medlolscsignup
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
Read more on Chaucer in the LRB:
Barbara Newman: Chaucer's Voices
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n22/barbara-newman/kek-kek!-kokkow!-quek-quek!
Gabriel Josipovici: Imperfect Knight
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v02/n07/gabriel-josipovici/imperfect-knight
Tom Shippey: Chaucer's Life
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v15/n01/tom-shippey/nayled-to-the-wow
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.