Table of Contents

Introduction: Laughing at, with, and in the Middle Ages
The Cervantean Paradigm: Comedy, Madness, and Meta-medievalism in Don Quixote
Scraping the Rust from the Joking Bard: Chaucer in the Age of Wit
Medievalist Farce as Anti-totalitarian Weapon: Dario Fo as Modern Guillare
Pre-modern Camp and Faerie Legshows: Travestying the Middle Ages on the Nineteenth-Century Stage
Up the Middle Ages: Performing Tradition in Comic Medievalist Cinema
'The past is a different and fairly disgusting country': The Middle Ages in recent British 'jocumentary'
Smelling the Past: Medieval Heritage Tourism and the Phenomenology of Ironic Nostalgia
Afterword: Laughing into the Future
Bibliography

About the Author

Australian Research Council Future Fellow - Macquarie University, NSW

Reviews

This is an important book because, if there is a crossover academic topic that appeals to the broader public, comic medievalism is surely it. D'Arcens provides both an insightful investigation into the broad appeal the Middle Ages affords as well as the ideological functions it serves, while also offering quite useful theoretical and pedagogical structures for further inquiry.
*JOURNAL OF ENGLISH AND GERMANIC PHILOLOGY*

[A] wide-ranging, perceptive and entertaining book.
*TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT*

D'Arcens should be commended for writing a sophisticated book that explores why the Middle Ages continue to amuse. Highly recommended.
*CHOICE*