Humor

It is difficult to make generalizations about humor during the Renaissance because the kinds of things that provoked laughter varied by country, language, and social class. In all parts of Europe, however, laughter was considered an important—even essential—part of life. Scholars often quoted the words of the ancient Greek philosopher ARISTOTLE, who described man as a being capable of laughter. Scholars of drama, medicine, and rhetoric* discussed the nature of humor and laughter. In the fields of drama and fiction, the Renaissance produced some of the greatest comic writers ever.

Humor on the Stage. Comedy played a major role in both formal and informal performances throughout the Renaissance. Renaissance festivals often featured comic performances that made a mockery of the established social order. The most important of these festivals was Carnival, a period of revelry before the sober days of Lent (the 40 weekdays leading up to Easter). Carnival festivities in all parts of Europe included comic plays. French celebrations involved "fools' plays," known as sotties, while Polish events included crude comedies in a realistic style. Songs with mocking or obscene lyrics also formed a part of some Carnival events.

Some early plays featured political humor. The French king Louis XII encouraged political comedies because they helped him to learn what was going on in the state. Other comedies based their humor on stock characters and themes, such as a cheating wife deceiving her dim-witted husband. Although most of these early farces* were penned by unnamed authors, a few well-known poets wrote in this style in France and England. In Italy, a kind of farce called COMMEDIA DELL'ARTE developed in the 1500s. Commedia dell'arte also involved standard character types caught in typical situations. This style of drama featured physical action and broad comedy, with plots ranging from the fairly realistic to the wildly fantastic. Humanist* comedies provided a more intellectual alternative to farce. Humanists of the Renaissance imitated the comedies of the ancient Roman playwrights Plautus and Terence. This classical* style of comedy arose in Italy and spread across Europe. The Italian statesman and author Niccolò MACHIAVELLI produced an obscene comedy called The Mandrake Root that is widely viewed as a masterpiece. Another brilliant work in this style is Ralph Roister Doister, by the English playwright Nicolas Udall.

In addition to staged performances, humor had a regular place at royal and noble courts in the person of the fool, or jester. Dressed in a costume that featured a cap with bells on it, the fool was the one person at the court allowed to ridicule everyone and everything. Fools appeared often as characters in literary works, such as the plays of William SHAKESPEARE. However, the fool's function was not always strictly comical. In many works, he served more to instruct than to amuse.

Humor on the Page. Like the drama of the period, literature of the 1400s and 1500s was largely comic. Renaissance humanists frequently gathered humorous material from classical Greek and Roman literature. They particularly enjoyed collecting short Latin works called facetiae, which could be jokes, serious stories, riddles, or moral fables. Humanists usually did not explain why they chose particular stories for their joke collections. Some, including the Italian poet PETRARCH, drew heavily on the ideas of the ancient Roman writer CICERO about what was funny.

Humanists also enjoyed creating their own humor—especially for the purpose of satire*. The Dutch scholar Desiderius ERASMUS was particularly good at using humor in his satire. One of his funniest works, "The Abbot* and the Learned Lady," ends with the laughter of the witty, educated lady who has outsmarted the rude, ignorant churchman. German and French humanists of the 1500s produced some extremely funny works of satire by writing mock letters in deliberately bad Latin.

Other Renaissance writers turned to verse for their comedy. One of the Italian comic writers' favorite forms was the mock epic*, a takeoff on a highly respected literary form. The famous poem Orlando Furioso (Mad Roland), by the Italian poet Ludovico ARIOSTO, contains elements of the mock epic style. Another well-known mock epic is The Chess Game by Jan Kochanowski, Poland's most famous Renaissance poet. Poets in England or France do not appear to have used this style, but they did mock the conventions* of other poetic forms. For example, Petrarch had set certain standards for love poetry that involved praising the beloved in extravagant terms. Later writers made fun of Petrarch's style, as in Shakespeare's well-known sonnet "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun."

Humor appeared in both long and short fiction works during the Renaissance. Miguel de CERVANTES of Spain and François RABELAIS of France incorporated humor in novels that are still widely read today. Most French comic authors wrote shorter stories, often inspired by Italian sources. For example, MARGARET OF NAVARRE based several comic stories in her Heptameron on the famous Decameron (1353) by Italian author Giovanni BOCCACCIO. Some French stories, such as the collection How to Succeed, by Béroalde de Verville (written around 1612), were highly obscene.

In England one popular form of humor was the "jest," a very short story with a punch line (much like a modern joke). Writers collected these comic stories into jestbooks, which were similar to the Italian collections of facetiae. Jestbooks also became popular in Germany in the late 1500s, and some examples appeared in Spain and Italy.

Humor in the Visual Arts. The comic elements found in Renaissance literature also appeared in the art of the period. Art often used humor to deliver moral or religious messages. During the Protestant Reformation*, Protestant leaders put out illustrated pamphlets that portrayed their enemies as animals or showed the devil playing a Catholic monk like a musical instrument. However, not all humorous art had a moral message. In the late 1520s artist Giulio Romano painted a room at a palace in Mantua with lifelike figures of giants who appear to be pulling down the walls and pillars of the room. This witty style of illusion, known as trompe l'oeil (fool the eye), was very popular at the time.

In the early 1500s, artists began painting in a style known as grotesque, based on ancient Roman wall paintings. Grotesques often portray humans and animals in a fantastic manner, with leaves, flowers, and curly lines where arms and legs should be. The famous Italian artist MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI created several works in this style. Many grotesques still exist on the walls of museums and Italian palaces. Humor also found its way into Renaissance sculpture. The Boboli Gardens of Florence, Italy, built in the 1500s, contain such comic statues as a fat dwarf sitting on a turtle.

Humor

A Feast for the Eyes