Humour in Old English Literature: Communities of Laughter in Early Medieval England

Humour in Old English Literature employs modern theories of humour to analyse surviving writing from early medieval England, reclaiming often-neglected texts and uncovering ironies and embarrassments within well-established works. It suggests that the humour of Old English literature has been scantily covered in past scholarship due to modern readers' expectations of a dour and serious corpus.

Format: Hardback
Length: 358 pages
Publication date: 20 October 2023
Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Humour in Old English Literature employs contemporary theories of humour to investigate the style and content of surviving writing from early medieval England. The book delves into various aspects of Old English literature, including Old English riddles, wisdom literature, runic writing, the use of rhymes, and humour in heroic poetry, hagiography, and romance. By employing a refined understanding of literary technique, the book offers a revisionist perspective on Old English literature, partly by reclaiming often-overlooked texts and partly by uncovering ironies and embarrassments within well-established works, such as Beowulf.

Most remarkably, Jonathan Wilcox engages with a substantial body of didactic literature, identifying instances of humour in two anonymous homilies and extensive usage in saints' lives. Each chapter concludes by revealing a distinct audience that would have shared in the laughter. Wilcox argues that the humour of Old English literature has received scant attention in past scholarship due to modern readers' expectations of a dour and serious corpus. Humour in Old English Literature seeks to disrupt this cycle by highlighting works and moments that remain entertaining to contemporary readers, just as they were to their medieval counterparts.

Weight: 712g
Dimension: 161 x 238 x 32 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781487545307