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Search - Burlesque Plays And Poems

Burlesque Plays And Poems
Author: Various

INTRODUTION. THE word Burlesque came to us through the French from the Italian burlesco burla being mockery or raillery, and implying always an object. Burlesque must, burlarsi di uno, mock at somebody or something, and when intended to give pleasure it is nothing if not good-natured. One etymologist associates the word with the old English bour... more »d, a jest the Gaelic burd, he says, means mockery, and buirleadh, is language of ridicule. Yes, and burrailis the loud romping of children, and burrall is weeping and wailing in a deep-toned howl. Another etymologist takes the Italian burla, waggery or banter, as diminutive from the Latin burra, which means a rough hair, but is used by Ausonius in the sense of a jest. That etymology no doubt fits burlesque to a hair, but, like Launces sweetheart, it may have more hair than wit. The first burlesque in this volume Chaucers Rime of Sir Thopas, writtentowards theclose ofthe fourteenth century is a jestuponlong-winded story-tellers, who expatiate on insignificant detail for in his day there were many metrical romances written by the ancestors of Mrs. Nickleby. Riding to Canterbury with the other pilgrims, Chaucer good-humouredly takes to himself the part of the companion who jogs along with even flow of words, luxuriating in all trivial detail until he brings Sir Thopas face to face with an adventure, for he meets a giant with three heads. But even then there is the adventure to be waited for. The story-teller finds that he must trot his knight back home to fetch his armour, and when he is comen again to toune, it takes so many words to get him his supper, get his armour on, and trot him out again, that the inevitable end comes, with rude intrusion of some faint-hearted lording who has not courage to listen until the point of the story can be descried from afar. So the best of the old story-tellers, in a book full of examples of tales told as they should be, burlesqued misuse of his art, and the Rime of Sir Thopas became a warning buoy over the shallows. I cannot, said Sir Thomas Wyatt, in Henry VIII. s reign, say that Pan Passeth Apollo in music manyfold Praise Sir Thopas for a noble tale, And scorn the story that the Knight told. The second burlesque in this volume, Beaumont and Fletchers Knight of the Burning Pestle, written in eight days, appeared in 1611, six years after the publication of the First Part, and four years earlier than the Second Part, of Don Quixote...

ISBN-13: 9781406779592
ISBN-10: 1406779598
Publication Date: 10/9/2007
Pages: 316
Rating:

0 stars, based on 0 rating

Publisher: Church Press
Book Type: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

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