Fabliaux

        The fabliaux appear to be of French origin, of course, and as we might expect, many more have survived in French than in Middle English.  In fact, Chaucer is the author of most known surviving fabliaux in Middle English.  This probably tells us something about his early tastes and training as an author, but don't leap too quickly to what that might be.  If you are curious about this genre, especially its major role in supplying tales for the Canterbury Tales, you might try some of these sources:

Translations from the French:

TITLE Cuckolds, clerics, & countrymen : medieval French fabliaux /
translated by John DuVal ; introductions, texts, and notes by
Raymond Eichmann.
PUB. INFO. Fayetteville : University of Arkansas Press, 1982.
DESCRIPT 129 p. ; 26 cm.
NOTE English and French.
BIBLIOG. Bibliography: 125-127.
NOTE Includes index.
CONTENTS Du bouchier d'Abevile = The butcher of Abevile -- Burnain, la
vache au prestre = Browny, the priest's cow -- Des trois
bocus = The three hunchbacks -- Du prestre ki abevete = The
priest who peeked -- Berangier au lonc cul = Berangier of the long asshole
Main Collection 841.8 C963

AUTHOR Legrand, cit., 1737-1800.
TITLE Fabliaux or tales, abridged from French manuscripts of the XIIth
and XIIIth centuries, by M. Le Grand, selected and tr. into
English verse, by the late G. L. Way, esq.; with a preface,
notes, and appendix, by the late G. Ellis, esq.
EDITION A new ed., cor.
PUB. INFO. London, Printed for J. Rodwell, 1815.
DESCRIPT 3 v. 19 cm.
LC SUBJ HDG Fabliaux.
Tales, Medieval.
Main Collection 841.8 L51 v.1
Main Collection 841.8 L51 v.2
Main Collection 841.8 L51 v.3

 

AUTHOR Harrison, Robert L. (Robert Ligon), 1932-
TITLE Gallic salt; eighteen fabliaux translated from the Old French.
PUB. INFO. Berkeley, University of California Press [1974]
DESCRIPT vi, 427 p. 24 cm.
LC SUBJ HDG French poetry -- To 1500 -- Translations into English.
Fabliaux -- Translations into English.
Tales, Medieval.
ISBN 0520024184.
Main Collection 841.8 H321g

 

Critical Studies:

AUTHOR Benson, Larry Dean, 1929-
TITLE The literary context of Chaucer's fabliaux; texts and
translations [by] Larry D. Benson [and] Theodore M. Andersson.
PUB. INFO. Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill [1971]
DESCRIPT xv, 395 p. 23 cm.
SERIES The Library of literature.
BIBLIOG. Includes bibliographical references.
CONTENTS The miller's tale and its analogues.--The reeve's tale and its
analogues.--The merchant's tale and its analogues.--The
shipman's tale and its analogues.--Some analogues of Chaucer's
other tales.
LC SUBJ HDG Chaucer, Geoffrey, d. 1400. Canterbury tales -- Sources.
Reserves 826.2 C49Pbe

 

AUTHOR Muscatine, Charles.
TITLE The Old French fabliaux / Charles Muscatine.
PUB. INFO. New Haven : Yale University Press, c1986.
DESCRIPT xii, 219 p. ; 22 cm.
BIBLIOG. "A list and index of the fabliaux": p. 201-214.
Bibliography: p. 171-199.
NOTE Includes index.
LC SUBJ HDG Fabliaux -- History and criticism.
French poetry -- To 1500 -- History and criticism.
Humorous poetry, French -- History and criticism.
Sex in literature.
ISBN 0300035276.
Main Collection 841.9 M985o

 

AUTHOR Cooke, Thomas Darlington, 1933-
TITLE The Old French and Chaucerian fabliaux : a study of their comic
climax / Thomas D. Cooke.
PUB. INFO. Columbia : University of Missouri Press, 1978.
DESCRIPT 220 p. ; 23 cm.
BIBLIOG. Bibliography: p. 201-213.
NOTE Includes index.
LC SUBJ HDG Chaucer, Geoffrey, d. 1400 -- Criticism and interpretation.
Fabliaux -- History and criticism.
Comic, The, in literature.
Tales, Medieval -- History and criticism.
French poetry -- To 1500 -- History and criticism.
Main Collection 841.9 C773o

 

AUTHOR Cooke, Thomas Darlington, 1933-
TITLE The humor of the fabliaux : a collection of critical essays /
edited by Thomas D. Cooke, Benjamin L. Honeycutt.
PUB. INFO. Columbia : University of Missouri Press, 1974.
DESCRIPT viii, 216 p. ; 22 cm.
BIBLIOG. Bibliography: p. 197-207.
NOTE Includes index.
LC SUBJ HDG Fabliaux -- History and criticism.
French poetry -- To 1500 -- History and criticism.
Humorous poetry, French -- History and criticism.
Tales, Medieval -- History and criticism.
ALT AUTHOR Honeycutt, Benjamin L.
Main Collection 841.9 C773h

        For a long overdue feminist reading of these bawdy tales, see Wendy Harding's book chapter, "The prick which is not one : how women talk back in Old French fabliaux" in Feminist Approaches to the Body in Medieval Literature ed. Linda Lomperis and Sarah Stanbury, (Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c1993): 809.9 F329. 

        Searching the MLA Bibliography online for "fabliau OR fabliaux" will produce hundreds of hits, especially if you do not chicken-out on your modern language training and try some of the articles in French, Spanish, or Italian.  Scott Vazsily's "Fabliau Plotting Against Romance in Chaucer's Knight's Tale" (Style 31:3 [September 1997] available online) includes, in his introduction, some excellent summaries of recent scholars' attempts to define the genre and to explain how it works.  He also is developing a way of reading pioneered by Peggy Knapp's Chaucer and the Social Contest (NY: Routledge, 1990;  826.2 C49HcaSk ) which describes pilgrims' choice of tales to tell in the competition as a contest among socio-political discourses to control readers' senses of how society works.  Especially if you already have taken English 215, the Vazsily/Knapp approach may be especially productive for stimulating paper topics.