Abstract
Monsters and humorousness, although contradictory at first glance, are often both complementary and similar in their roles under closer scrutiny: monstrosities may elicit laughter and ridicule, and instances of humour may be frightening and threatening. Both are the effect of surprising juxtapositions of opposing elements and values, both rely on a degree of cultural indeterminacy and both may simultaneously carry serious yet entertaining admonitions and function as cultural markers in critical circumstances. The debate on approaching monstrosity through humour and its converse displays a rhetorical effect analogous to Pseudo-Dionysian apophasis. This chapter explores parallels between the way monstrosities and humorousness have been theorised and the apophatic approach towards expressing reality in language present in Anglo-Saxon literature. It argues that the complementariness of the monstrous and the humorous transforms them into rhetorical tools addressing human cognitive limits and limits of humanity itself. As its study material, the chapter chiefly considers the Liber monstrorum de diversis generibus, the Exeter Book’s poem The Whale and one of the Exeter Book’s poetic riddles.
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Notes
- 1.
A comprehensive discussion of medieval manuscript marginalia is provided by Sandler, ‘The Study of Marginal Imagery’, 1–49.
- 2.
For a discussion of the locations of medieval monstrosities see Friedman, The Monstrous Races, 37–58. Maja Kominko has recently presented a review of medieval locations of Paradise: Kominko, ‘New Perspectives on Paradise’, 139–54.
- 3.
Stang, Apophasis and Pseudonymity, 159. See also 158–69.
- 4.
Orchard, Pride and Prodigies, 86.
- 5.
Ibid., 87–90.
- 6.
Ibid., 89.
- 7.
Orchard, Liber monstrorum, 254–55.
- 8.
Ibid., 256–57.
- 9.
Ibid., 256–57.
- 10.
Ibid., 276–77.
- 11.
Ibid., 276–77.
- 12.
On the presence of riddles among the earliest preserved written Egyptian and Sumerian texts see Hansen, The Solomon Complex, 12–41.
- 13.
On the folkloristic aspects and appearances of riddles see the fundamental essays by Taylor, ‘The Riddle’, 129–47; Georges and Dundes, ‘Toward a Structural Definition of the Riddle’, 111–18; and Frye, ‘Charms and Riddles’, 123–47.
- 14.
Augustine, De civitate Dei.
- 15.
Augustine, City of God, 663–64.
- 16.
In folk- and fairy tales, shapeshifters are rendered powerless or brought back to their primeval shape once a key to their transformations is identified, such as when the animal skin or bird feathers of heroes turned to animals or birds are destroyed or stolen in European fairy tales. See, for instance: ‘The Swan Maiden’ in Tatar, The Classic Fairy Tales, 72–73; ‘The Twelve Brothers’ and ‘Bearskin’ in Pullman, Grimm Tales, 39–46 and 289–95 respectively.
- 17.
Riddle 85 (82) in Muir, The Exeter Anthology, 376.
- 18.
Riddle 85 (82) in Williamson, The Complete Old English Poems, 592.
- 19.
See for example Wilcox, ‘Mock-Riddles in Old English’, 180–87; Borysławski, The Old English Riddles, 34–37; Bitterli, Say What I Am Called, 14–15.
- 20.
See Fry, ‘Exeter Book Riddle Solutions’, 22–33; and Bitterli, Say What I Am Called, 215–16.
- 21.
Ohl, The Enigmas of Symphosius, 129.
- 22.
Reading, ‘Riddle 69’, unpaginated.
- 23.
DeAngelo, ‘Discretio spirituum’, 284.
- 24.
Discussions of the poems belonging to the Old English Physiologus are offered by Letson, ‘The Old English Physiologus’, 15–41, Rossi-Reder, ‘Beasts and Baptism’, 461–76 and specifically of The Whale by DeAngelo, ‘Discretio spirituum’, 271–89.
- 25.
Isidore, Etymologies, 243: ‘Portents are also called signs, omens, and prodigies, because they are seen to portend and display, indicate and predict future events. The term “portent” (portentum) is said to be derived from foreshadowing (portendere), that is, from “showing beforehand” (praeostendere). “Signs” (ostentum), because they seem to show (ostendere) a future event. Prodigies (prodigium) are so called, because they “speak hereafter” (porro dicere), that is, they predict the future. But omens (monstrum) derive their name from admonition (monitus), because in giving a sign they indicate (demonstrare) something, or else because they instantly show (monstrare) what may appear; and this is its proper meaning, even though it has frequently been corrupted by the improper use of writers’.
- 26.
The Whale in Muir, The Exeter Anthology, 272.
- 27.
The Whale in Williamson, The Complete Old English Poems, 509.
- 28.
Mark Gardiner provides a detailed overview of the exploitation of whales and other sea mammals and of its social context in Anglo-Saxon and later England. Gardiner, ‘The Exploitation of Sea-Mammals in Medieval England’, 173–95.
- 29.
Ross, The Language of Humour, xii.
- 30.
Cohen, ‘Monster Culture (Seven Theses)’, 3–25.
- 31.
Billig, Laughter and Ridicule, 175–76.
- 32.
Ibid., 176.
- 33.
Larkin-Galiñanes, ‘An Overview of Humour Theory’, 4–16.
- 34.
Ibid., 5–9.
- 35.
Ibid., 9–12.
- 36.
Ibid., 12–15.
- 37.
Raskin, ‘Linguistic Heuristics of Humor’, 11–25.
- 38.
Cited in Larkin-Galiñanes, ‘An Overview of Humour Theory’, 15.
- 39.
Editions and translations of the twelfth-century versions of the letter are provided by Brewer, Prester John, 29–96.
- 40.
Among those familiar to literate audiences of the late Anglo-Saxon England are also the Old English The Wonders of the East and The Letter of Alexander to Aristotle. Both are edited and translated in Orchard, Pride and Prodigies.
- 41.
Eco, Baudolino, 405–6.
- 42.
For an analysis of the uses of laughter and dread in contemporary conceptual and visual arts see Klein, Art and Laughter, 93–109.
- 43.
Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagite, De Mystica Theologia, 142.
- 44.
Pseudo-Dionysius, The Complete Works, 135.
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Borysławski, R. (2020). The Monsters That Laugh Back: Humour as a Rhetorical Apophasis in Medieval Monstrology. In: Derrin, D., Burrows, H. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Humour, History, and Methodology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56646-3_12
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