Short comic narratives, composed between the late 12th and the 14th c. The number of fabliaux varies according to the criteria used to define them, but there are roughly 140, about 60 of which are designated as fablel or flabel by their authors. This term, which is simply the diminutive of fable, is not particularly illuminating as a description, since although a minority of fabliaux are related to existing fables with an all-human cast, tales with anthropomorphized animals as protagonists are not generally regarded as fabliaux. A few authors of fabliaux are known by a name and no more (Guérin, Durand), and there are several poets who composed fabliaux as well as works in other genres (Bodel, Rutebeuf, Watriquet de Couvin, Jacques de Baisieux, Jean de Condé [see Baudouin De Condé]) but the majority of texts are anonymous. Most fabliaux are written in octosyllabic rhyming couplets, and are well under 1, 000 lines long.
Earlier this century fabliaux were regarded as a marginal genre, and were certainly not considered suitable for students; an early student anthology (ed. Johnston and Owen, 1957) complains that ‘half of the total violate modern susceptibilities to a serious extent’, and confines itself to exemplars that are ‘reasonably acceptable’ (p. ix). Many fabliaux are indeed very explicit about sexual behaviour, and especially sexual fantasy. Whereas fables anthropomorphize animals, in fabliaux it is often genitals that are endowed with independent agency, and assimilated to animals (L'Escuiriel; La Sorisete aus estopes; the various versions of La Damoisele qui ne pooit oïr parler de fotre; etc.). Some of the fabliaux are also pornographic, in the sense that their narratives revolve quite blatantly around the size and suitability of sexual organs, and the quantity or frequency of sexual performance. Others are scatological. In general, they focus attention on the lower body (including the stomach—eating and drinking are also prominent themes) and are dismissive of any attempt to valorize ‘higher’ concerns. In their irreverence towards idealism the fabliaux recall the Roman de Renart: theirs is a world where belief in abstract ideals is generally misplaced, if not a downright handicap.
This earthiness of the fabliaux, combined with their liking for non-noble characters, led to their initially being categorized as ‘bourgeois literature’. They have also been seen as ‘popular’ in their ethical attitudes, and in their perpetuation of classic ‘jokes’. A major turning-point in fabliaux scholarship came with the realization that many of them are burlesques of courtly texts, and that their obsession with what goes on below the belt results not from lower-class philistinism, but from carefully targeted parody (Nykrog, 1957). Fabliaux and romances might, it became apparent, be enjoyed by the same audiences; they might even be composed for them by the same authors.
This critical move reclaimed the fabliaux for literary attention. Since then, the wit and linguistic sophistication of these texts have been increasingly demonstrated. Although no longer seen as exclusively burlesquing courtly texts, they are now accepted as a highly ‘literary’ genre, and even as epitomizing ‘literariness’. For the fabliaux represent a world in which the ingenious triumph over the unimaginative. Those who trust in the fact that they possess power, or money, or a wife, can be guaranteed humiliation, loss, or cuckolding, for most fabliau heroes are tricksters, capable of turning their very lack of such possessions to their own advantage.
A theme which is found in several fabliaux involves the trickster punishing a wealthy house-hold which has refused him hospitality. In Le Bouchier d'Abevile a butcher, refused admission by a priest, offers to pay for accommodation with a sheep he has stolen from the priest's herd; he also buys sexual favours from the priest's mistress and maidservant by promising them the sheepskin. Only when he has left do the members of the household discover how they have all been tricked. Sometimes the unimaginative try their hand at trickery, only to have their own trick rebound against them. One recurring fabliau plot (e.g. La Borgoise d'Orliens—it is also found in the one surviving Occitan fabliau) is that of the ‘mari cocu, battu et content’. A rich husband suspects his wife of infidelity and determines to catch her out. He pretends to leave, then comes back disguised as the suspected adulterer. His wife sees through the disguise, but plays along with it: pretending to be furious at the intrusion of a wouldbe seducer, she has him soundly beaten. The husband is locked up overnight, congratulating himself on his wife's virtue, while she entertains the real lover. Such fabliaux can be seen as ‘literary’ in their play with rival representations.
In many cases the successful representations, like literature, are linguistic: the dupe is deceived by a form of words, whether it is a husband believing his wife's account of being ‘healed’ by a long thin flask from which came drops of unguent (La Saineresse) or St Peter letting a jongleur into heaven (Saint Pierre et le jongleur). Many of these linguistic deceptions show an uncanny familiarity with clerical skills such as biblical commentary; some tricksters are clearly intellectuals in mufti. If the Roman de Renart reflects, albeit distantly, scholastic debates of the period, so do the fabliaux; their major point of contact with scholasticism is their common interest in language and epistemology. Chaucer adapted several fabliaux in the Canterbury Tales, and there are also analogues in Middle High German, but the wit and naughtiness of the fabliaux remain predominantly French phenomena.
[Sarah Kay]
Bibliography
- P. Nykrog, Les Fabliaux (1957)
- W. Noomen and N. van den Boogaard (eds.), Nouveau recueil complet de fabliaux (1983- )
- M. J. S. Schenk, The Fabliaux, Tales of Wit and Deception (1987)
