AN OUTLINE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH FABLIAU AFTER CHAUCER

Abstract

THE English fabliau is a very curious literary phenomenon whose history, especially its later history after Chaucer, has never been fully told.1 The popular notion of Chaucer's superb fabliaux inaugurating and epitomizing a great tradition of Englishbawdy could hardly be more misleading. Although there may well exist such a tradition, the fabliau, strictlydefined, contributed only a very small amount to it. The evidence clearly .suggests that far from being a popular literary form, it was in fact a very uncommonone in English. Before Chaucer's time, there was a mere handful of fabliaux written in England, whether in English or Anglo-Norman. Moreover, the golden age of fabliau in France and ,Germanywas the thirteenth century, and writing in the form had virtually ceased by 1340. Chaucer was thus writing in a form which had always been rare in England and was now outmoded even in its country of origin. But, being so forewarned, one should not underestimate the fabliau either. While never a major force in Englishcomedy, it survived in its small wayan impressively long time; there are extant English verse fabliaux, quite 'medieval' in plot and characterization, which were written in the late sixteenth century. Certainly, the period followingChaucer's death, the subject of this