Hagiographic Ambition, Fabliau Humor, and Creature Comforts in The Book of Margery Kempe. (October 2013)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: L, V; C, M -K
• Is Part Of: Exemplaria. Volume 25:Number 4(2013)
• Page Start: 284
• Page End: 302
• Publication Date: 2013-10
• Subjects: Margery Kempe, -- humor, -- fabliau, -- hagiography, -- Henri Bergson, -- temporality, -- post-historicism; European literature -- Renaissance, 1450-1600 -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Literature, Medieval -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Middle Ages -- Periodicals; 809.0205
• DOI: 10.1179/1041257313Z.00000000038
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1041-2573

Abstract

Abstract : This article examines the comedic qualities of The Book of Margery Kempe in light of Henri Bergson's writings about humor. The Book's humor emerges, in part, from Margery's adherence to a mechanized hagiographic script from an idealized past regardless of the ever-changing demands of her late medieval context, and in part from the tendency of that script to take on the tropes of fabliau. Kempe uses the interplay of martyrology and fabliau, surprisingly complementary genres that share an interest in the nature and function of desire, to call into question devotional practices based upon imitatio and their effects upon human companionship. Readers, both medieval and medievalist, are invited to laugh at Margery, to ally with her, and to acknowledge their shared interest in the satisfyingly unpredictable results of a creature's attentive engagements with a complex emotional and physical environment.