A distinctive subset of late medieval drama are those customs which involved an element of subversion or inversion on the occasion of a calendar feast. These customs, which may generically be labelled as misrule, have long been a source of interest to antiquarians, local historians and students of medieval drama and popular culture. One particular view which has dominated the discussion and interpretation of misrule is the approach which sees such practices as a conservative force in late medieval society, that is, by temporarily challenging authority these customs merely reaffirm it in the long run. It is the contention of this thesis that although this model has raised the important question of the relationship between misrule, politics and social structure in this period, it is inappropriate both as a metaphor and as a tool for the analysis of these themes. I review the scholarly literature on misrule over the past twenty-five years in Chapter One, drawing attention to the problems of previous approaches. In Chapter Two I put forward what I believe to be a more appropriate vocabulary and framework in which those calendar customs with a transgressive element can be discussed. I suggest that misrule is more constructively approached as an instance of symbolic inversion, which enables functionalist terms like 'safety-valve' to be replaced by a neutral language that does not prejudge the function of a custom. I use this new methodology to undertake a series of case-studies in Chapters Three to Six, each of which examines the function of a particular custom. I am able to show that misrule could have a variety of functions in the late medieval town, playing a part in local change as part of wider strategy of resistance, as well as being one means through which social status could be accumulated and articulated.

Le sacrement de confession, dont l’obligation annuelle est décidée par le concile de Latran IV (1215), est une pratique religieuse qui marque profondément la civilisation du Moyen Âge finissant. Le motif remporte un succès franc dans le théâtre profane des XIIIe XVIe siècles. Les farces montrent des scènes de confessions burlesques, toujours déviantes, dans lesquelles les travers des pénitents et des confesseurs apparaissent et dont la mécanique formelle est utilisée à des fins dégradées. La moralité favorise l’exploitation des métaphores de ce sacrement ou son allégorisation divisée en de multiples personnages qui gravitent autour de ses trois grands moments : contrition, confession et satisfaction ou pénitence. La figuration imagée est mise au service du sens théologique du sacrement, la confession étant un moyen de salut, une étape capitale par rapport au devenir éternel de l’âme. Enfin, les mystères de la Passion font adopter aux saints antiques le langage du sacrement, manifestant l’identité, dans la civilisation médiévale, entre conversion et confession. Malgré des élaborations esthétiques différenciées selon le genre théâtral, les fortes convergences entre les pièces du corpus montrent des dramaturges attentifs aux mêmes aspects du sacrement : les difficultés qu’il y a à accepter cette démarche d’auto-accusation, l’effort pastoral déployé par les contemporains pour en persuader le bien-fondé et en expliquer le déroulement et enfin, quand ils se font jour au XVIe siècle, les affrontements doctrinaux avec les protestants. Le théâtre est en cela le témoin de la théologie moyenne des hommes de son temps. / Confessing sins is a yearly duty for all Christians since the council of Lateran IV (1215). The broad impact of this religious practice on late medieval civilization is patent through the French theatre of the xiiith – xvith centuries. Comic short plays (farces) show realistic scenes of confession: but, due to the confessor’s or the sinner’s attitude, none is right. The comical and critical distance allows the use of the ritual form, disconnected from the preoccupation of heaven and hell and applied to terrestrial purposes. On the contrary, the use of allegory in morality plays (moralités) aims at showing the signification of the sacrament: images emphasize the meaning of this sacrament which provides ways of salvation to the soul of the sinner. The moments of the rite, contrition, confession, and penance, are, like every other notion in connection with them, impersonated by allegorical characters who explain and perform the sacrament. Eventually, in the Passion plays (mystères), saint characters tell their conversion to the ritual forms of the sacrament, showing the equivalency, in that civilization, between conversion and confession. Despite esthetic differences depending on the theater genres, all plays show a similar interest on some aspects of the sacrament: the reluctance every man must overcome to formulate his self-accusation, the pastoral care with which the institution keeps explaining and convincing people of its use and finally, as it rises in the xvie Century, the protestant contestation of the sacrament. Theatre thus appears to be a testimony of the average late medieval theology.

La tesi affronta il problema della teatralità presente nel romanzo di François Rabelais (1483-1553). La scrittura dell’umanista contamina i generi letterari attivi tra tardo Medioevo e Rinascimento, recupera le forme dei generi classici greco-latini e sfrutta la forza vivente delle pièces teatrali francesi. La mescolanza di tutti questi materiali produce una poetica coerente, volta al potenziamento della visione del mondo, che trova nella teatralità la sua evidenza più forte. Ribaltando la prospettiva degli studi critici precedenti, il lavoro analizza l’opera secondo un "découpage" delle categorie teatrali principali: il tempo, lo spazio, il pubblico, il testo e l’attore. Il risultato finale è l’emersione di una teatralità strutturale, diffusa nell’intero romanzo tramite diversi meccanismi: l’ambiguità tra diegesi/mimesi e tra lettura/ascolto, il dialogo tra narratore e lettori, la compresenza di pubblico e personaggi recitanti, le indicazioni di una spazialità performativa, l’importanza della gestualità e della vocalità, la musicalità teatrale della lingua, il lessico specialistico della messinscena, i temi del travestimento, del "théâtre du monde" e del "théâtre anatomique". / The dissertation focuses on the connection between François Rabelais’s Gargantua et Pantagruel and the theatre. Rabelais’s writing possesses generic characteristics, typical of the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance periods; it also presents generic forms derived from Greek and Latin literature, and is endowed with the vitality of French medieval theatre. The mingling of these materials results in a coherent poetics expressed through pervasive theatrical elements, and aimed at amplifying the reader’s worldview. Previous scholarly perspectives are here “overturned”, for analysis is built on fundamentally theatrical categories: time, space, audience, text and actor. Theatricality proves to inform the very structure of Rabelais’s work and manifests itself in the alternation of diegesis and mimesis; in the ongoing dialogue between narrator and readers/listeners; in the co-presence of audience and characters/players; in the indications of performative spaces; in the emphasis on gesture and voice; in the theatrical musicality of language; in the specialist vocabulary of the mise-en-scène and the themes of disguise, théâtre du monde and théâtre anatomique.