Composed between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, these virtually unknown erotic and satiric poems lie at the root of the Western comic tradition. Passed down by the anticlerical middle classes of medieval France, The Fabliaux depicts priapic priests, randy wives, and their cuckolded husbands in tales that are shocking even by today’s standards. Chaucer and Boccaccio borrowed heavily from these riotous tales, which were the wit of the common man rebelling against the aristocracy and Church in matters of food, money, and sex. Containing 69 poems with a parallel Old French text, The Fabliaux comes to life in a way that has never been done in nearly eight hundred years.
- ISBN10 0871403579
- ISBN13 9780871403575
- Publish Date 23 July 2013 (first published 10 June 2013)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Publisher WW Norton & Co
- Imprint Liveright Publishing Corporation
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 1024
- Language English