Mirages de la farce: Fête des fous, Bruegel et Molière (Purdue University Monographs in Romance Languages)

by Thierry Boucquey

Establishing the notion of reasonable foolishness and foolish reason as a generic principle of the old French farce, Boucquey's study examines the interdependencies among four key mimetic the demented universe of the Feast of Fools festival, the genre of the farce, Bruegel's representation of the world, and the euphoric comedies of triumphant madness created by Moliere. This reinterpretation of French farce according to the principle of a topsy-turvy world reveals the link of madness that unites the four modes of production studied, from textual linearity, through representational surface, to theatrical three-dimensionality. Of pluralist conception, the book's eclectic critical apparatus draws readily on foundations as diverse as historicism, semiotics, structuralism, Foucauldian theory, iconography, Derridean textualization, and etymology.

175 pages, Hardcover

First published April 30, 1991