• Contact

  • Newsletter

  • About us

  • Delivery options

  • Prospero Book Market Podcast

  • Laughter and Awkwardness in Late Medieval England: Social Discomfort in the Literature of the Middle Ages

    Laughter and Awkwardness in Late Medieval England by Watt, David;

    Social Discomfort in the Literature of the Middle Ages

    Series: New Directions in Medieval Studies;

      • GET 13% OFF

      • The discount is only available for 'Alert of Favourite Topics' newsletter recipients.
      • Publisher's listprice GBP 28.99
      • The price is estimated because at the time of ordering we do not know what conversion rates will apply to HUF / product currency when the book arrives. In case HUF is weaker, the price increases slightly, in case HUF is stronger, the price goes lower slightly.

        14 306 Ft (13 625 Ft + 5% VAT)
      • Discount 13% (cc. 1 860 Ft off)
      • Discounted price 12 446 Ft (11 854 Ft + 5% VAT)

    14 306 Ft

    db

    Availability

    printed on demand

    Why don't you give exact delivery time?

    Delivery time is estimated on our previous experiences. We give estimations only, because we order from outside Hungary, and the delivery time mainly depends on how quickly the publisher supplies the book. Faster or slower deliveries both happen, but we do our best to supply as quickly as possible.

    Product details:

    • Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing (UK)
    • Date of Publication 20 March 2025
    • Number of Volumes Paperback

    • ISBN 9781350375024
    • Binding Paperback
    • No. of pages208 pages
    • Size 229x150x13 mm
    • Weight 280 g
    • Language English
    • 765

    Categories

    Long description:

    'We live,' according to Adam Kotsko, 'in an awkward age.' While this condition may present some challenges, it may also help us to be more attuned to awkwardness in other ages. This book pairs medieval texts with twenty-first century films or television programmes to explore what the resonance between them can tell us about living together in an awkward age.

    In this nuanced and engaging study, David Watt focuses especially, but not exclusively, on the 15th century, which seems to intervene awkwardly in the literary trajectory between Chaucer and the Renaissance. This book's hypothesis is that the social discomfort depicted and engendered by writers as diverse as Thomas Hoccleve, Margery Kempe, and Sir Thomas Malory is a feature rather than a flaw. Laughter and Awkwardness in Late Medieval England explains that these authors have a great deal in common with other fifteenth-century authors, who generated embodied experiences of social discomfort in a range of genres by adopting and adapting literary techniques used by their predecessors and successors in slightly different ways. Like the twenty-first century texts with which they are paired, the late-medieval texts that feature in this book use the relationship between laughter and awkwardness to ask what it means to live with each other and how we can learn to live with ourselves.

    More

    Table of Contents:

    List of Figures
    List of Abbreviations
    Note on Quotations
    Acknowledgments
    Introduction
    1. When everything goes pear-shaped: Laughter and Awkwardness in Augustine's Confessions
    2. Elated or Gassy? Between Affect and Emotion in The Luttrell Psalter
    3. May this be true? The Awkwardness of Accepting Grace in Pearl
    4. Creating Tension: Laughter and Anger in Cleanness
    5. Virtuous even if it Displeases: Patience
    6. The Games People Play: Laughter and Belonging in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
    7. All Shall Be Well: Laughter and Belonging in Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love
    8. Too Much Information? Suggestive Diction in 'I Have a Gentil Cock'
    9. Does this stress make me look fat? Awkward Questions in Thomas Hoccleve's La Male Regle
    10. You're so vain, you probably think this Psalm is about you: Saving Face in Thomas Hoccleve's Series
    11. Great Cause to Laugh: Conversation and Compassion in The Book of Margery Kempe
    12. Sing with us, with a merry cheer! The Awkwardness of Going Along With It in Mankind
    13. Ever Froward: Standing up for the Audience in The Chester Play of Noah's Flood
    14. Disappointing Expectations: Laughter, Awkwardness, and the End of Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur
    Conclusion: An Awkward Age?
    References
    Index

    More