A Fabliau in the Prologue to the Tale of Beryn

Darjes, Bradley; Rendall, Thomas

doi:10.1484/j.ms.2.306332

Cited by 8 publications

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“…These appraisals are also echoed in studies of individual texts. Thus, Darjes and Rendell detect a ‘gingerly treatment of the earthier aspects of the genre’ in the Beryn Prologue (419), while Robbins dismisses The Mylner of Abyngton for its ‘sentimentality’ and use of ‘external moral evaluation’ (239). In short, most of the studies which deal with these texts treat them as tamer versions of the earlier, more irreverent and subversive poems.…”

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The English Fabliau in the 15th and 16th Centuries

Parsons

2013

Literature Compass

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The English Fabliau in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth CenturiesIn the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the fabliau attained a belated vogue in English. This paper offers a review of existing criticism on the English fabliaux, outlining the main issues it addresses, as well as suggesting the future directions scholarship might take. In particular, it offers a detailed analysis of how English writers after Chaucer tried to bring the fabliau genre into line with fifteenth-century notions of orthodoxy, a project which caused them to confront the challenges of the Lollard heresy in subtle but pervasive ways. It also notes that the very tactics used by the fabliaux to uphold latemedieval orthodoxy against Wycliffism rendered them all the more popular after the Reformation, despite their obvious Catholic sympathies. It is concluded that these two elements in the texts merit closer study, as they resonate with recent assessments of the period and its culture.Since Joseph Bédier revived interest in them in the 1890s, the French fabliaux have attracted an increasingly large body of commentary. These brief comic narratives in verse, focusing on trickery, violence and adultery, have been the subject of numerous studies, editions and essay-collections: the last decade alone has seen work on them by Keith Busby, Norris Levy, Holly Crocker, and several others.1 However, such attention stands in marked contrast to the critical reception of the fabliaux in English.

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The English Fabliau in the 15th and 16th Centuries

Parsons

2013

Literature Compass

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The Pardoner in the “Dogges Boure”: Early Reception of the Canterbury Tales

Allen¹

2005

False Fables and Exemplary Truth in Later Middle English Literature

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Narrative Use and the Practice of Fiction inThe Book of SindibadandThe Tale of Beryn

Bolens¹

2008

Poetics Today

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This essay considers David Rudrum's claim that narrative is a type of language act that needs to be construed with regard to its use. Here this claim is related to one of the most influential literary traditions in the history of fiction: the Eastern Book of Sindibad and its Western offshoot, the Seven Sages of Rome, in which narrative use is of central significance. I focus more particularly on a tale embedded in the Eastern Book of Sindibad, "The Merchant and the Rogues," which was adapted and translated into Middle English in the form of the fifteenth-century Tale of Beryn, an anonymous continuation of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The Sindibad tale and the Tale of Beryn thematize narrative use in the context of a trial, in which the pleas and counterpleas highlight the function of fictionalizing acts. Fiction in these narratives is conceptualized as a practice. Finally, I argue that the production and reception of the Tale of Beryn must be linked to the socioprofessional milieu and cultural activities of late medieval law students.

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A Fabliau in the Prologue to the Tale of Beryn

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

The English Fabliau in the 15th and 16th Centuries

The English Fabliau in the 15th and 16th Centuries

The Pardoner in the “Dogges Boure”: Early Reception of the Canterbury Tales

Narrative Use and the Practice of Fiction inThe Book of SindibadandThe Tale of Beryn

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