Humour and Humanism in the Renaissance

Of the articles in this volume eight concern a world-famous author (François Rabelais); the others are studies of little-known authors (Cortesi Corrozet Mercier) or genres (the joke the apophthegm). The common theme in all but one is humour: how it was defined and how used by orators and humanists but also by court jesters princes peasants and housewives. Though neglected by historians this subject was of crucial importance to writers as different as Luther Erasmus Thomas More and François Rabelais. The book is divided into four sections. 'Humanist Wit' concerns the large and multi-lingual corpus of Renaissance facetiae. The second and third parts focus on French humanist humour Rabelais in particular while the last section is titled 'Serious Humanists' because humour is by no means absent from it. For the Renaissance as Erasmus and Rabelais amply demonstrate and as the 'minor' authors studied here confirm wit whether affectionate or bitingly satirical can coexist with and indeed be inseparable from serious purpose. Rabelais as so often said it best: 'Rire est le propre de l'homme.'