{"id":5604,"date":"2022-06-08T23:28:21","date_gmt":"2022-06-08T20:28:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/?page_id=5604"},"modified":"2026-05-31T17:07:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T14:07:16","slug":"2021-2-lichmanova","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/en\/volumina\/2021-2\/2021-2-lichmanova\/","title":{"rendered":"2021-2-\u041b\u0438\u0447\u043c\u0430\u043d\u043e\u0432\u0430"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lichmanova E. <\/em>The Polyphony of Medieval Laughter [Digital resource] \/\/ Vox medii aevi. 2021. Vol. 2(9). P. 12\u201338. URL: https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/2021-2-lichmanova\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

DOI: 10.24412\/2587-6619-2021-2-12-38<\/p>\n\n\n

> Download the article<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n
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Elena Lichmanova<\/h3>\n\n\n

Post-Graduate Student in History of Art, University of Oxford
elena.lichmanova@merton.ox.ac.uk<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

The Polyphony of Medieval Laughter<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n

As an introduction to the subject of medieval laughter, the article demonstrates the diversity of its forms and the responses of contemporaries to it. It traces the main problems arising in the study of this subjective phenomenon and the ways of overcoming them existing in medieval studies. Three classical theories of laughter, shaped by philosophical and psychological discourses, have conditioned three basic methodological approaches to the study of medieval humour in different periods. Both the superiority theory of laughter prevalent in philosophical writings and the understanding of play as primitive and childish activity formed in anthropological research of the period, led to a condescending attitude to medieval humour in nineteenth and early twentieth-century publications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Freudian relief theory of laughter and Huizinga\u2019s reevaluation of the notion of play as a fundamental aspect of human culture determined twentieth-century studies on humour. The Bakhtinian idea of comical being an integral part of \u2018serious\u2019 religious culture was aligned with Huizinga\u2019s understanding of play, and Bakhtin\u2019s concept of carnival as a relief from the official church order reflected a psychoanalytic approach to laughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The studies of the last three decades have been influenced by the incongruity theory: it had risen in the psychological research in the 1970s and interprets the basis of any humour as the contrast between what one expects and what one gets. Historiography shows, however, that any methodological approach to the study of medieval humour must be complemented by its main ingredient \u2014 context. A special focus of this article was given to the historiography of visual humour: by demonstrating the development of research of both textual and visual sources, the article aims to reveal the artificiality of division into verbal and visual humour that had been inadvertently enunciated in the twentieth century studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keywords<\/em>: carnivalesque; incongruity theory; medieval laughter; methodology of studying humour; superiority theory of laughter; relief theory; verbal humour; visual humour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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FOR CITATION
\u041b\u0438\u0447\u043c\u0430\u043d\u043e\u0432\u0430 \u0415.\u0410. <\/em> \u041c\u043d\u043e\u0433\u043e\u0433\u043e\u043b\u043e\u0441\u0438\u0435 \u0441\u0440\u0435\u0434\u043d\u0435\u0432\u0435\u043a\u043e\u0432\u043e\u0433\u043e \u0441\u043c\u0435\u0445\u0430 [Digital Resource] [Lichmanova E.<\/em> The Polyphony of Medieval Laughter] \/\/ Vox medii aevi. 2021. Vol. 2(9). P. 12\u201338. URL: https:\/\/voxmediiaevi.com\/2021-2-lichmanova\/<\/a><\/h5>\n\n\n

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