Sudden Glory: Laughter as Subversive History

Description: A history of laughter in Western literature, focusing on the relation between laughter and literature, and surveying ancient, medieval, and modern traditions. In his Introduction, Sanders credits Chaucer with associating the roles of the feminine (Alison of MilT and the Wife of Bath) and the oral in comic literature. In chapter six, "Chaucer Punches the First Joke Home" (pp. 165-92), he treats MilT as the "first 'joke' in the English language," aimed in envy by the Miller at his rival, the Reeve, and a dramatization of Carnival in tension with Lent. In CT, Chaucer fuses laughing, joking, and storytelling, and MilT provides the first "punch line" in English--comic, aggressive, and timely, and converting "invidia" (envy) into "caritas" (charity).