Laughing at the Devil: Satan as a Humorous Figure in Middle English Literature

Author / Editor
Hartman, Michael Oscar.

Title
Laughing at the Devil: Satan as a Humorous Figure in Middle English Literature

Published
Dissertation Abstracts International 55 (1994): 559A-60A.

Description
Although Old English poetry always depicts Satan as supernaturally powerful (while doctrinally powerless), late-Middle English works show him as comic, the boaster who must fail--as in the mystery cycles followed by the morality plays. In Chaucer's FrT, the summoner seems more evil than the fiend does. Renaissance treatments vary.

Chaucer Subjects
Friar and His Tale.