Laughing Matters: Farce and the Making of Absolutism in France
Sara Beam
Bawdy satirical plays—many starring law clerks and seminarians—savaged corrupt officials and royal policies in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century France. The Church and the royal court tolerated—and even commissioned—such performances, the audiences for which included men and women from every social class. From the mid-sixteenth century, however, local authorities began to temper and in some cases ban such performances. Sara Beam, in revealing how theater and politics were intimately intertwined, shows how the topics we joke about in public reflect and shape larger religious and political developments.
For Beam, the eclipse of the vital tradition of satirical farce in late medieval and ... Read more
Show LessProduct Details
About Sara Beam
Reviews for Laughing Matters: Farce and the Making of Absolutism in France