The most common distinction between comedy and tragedy is that the former has a happy ending, while the latter does not. All's well that ends well, but not every happy ending is happy. It is, I submit, a question of perspective. A happy ending is always happy when seen from the point of view of... Continue Reading →
A medieval ‘knock-knock’ joke
The meta-literary mock legend of St Nemo is the result of one of the more sophisticated linguistic jokes in the medieval period. The Latin indefinite pronoun nemo means 'no one' and is found, naturally, in many medieval texts. In the Bible, we are told that 'no one is accepted as a prophet in his own country'... Continue Reading →
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