Jest books (or joke books) are collections of

jokes A joke is a display of humour in which words are used within a specific and well-defined narrative structure to make people laughter, laugh and is usually not meant to be interpreted literally. It usually takes the form of a story, often with ...

and humorous anecdotes in book form – a literary genre which reached its greatest importance in the

early modern period The early modern period is a Periodization, historical period that is defined either as part of or as immediately preceding the modern period, with divisions based primarily on the history of Europe and the broader concept of modernity. There i ...

Origins

The oldest surviving collection of jokes is the Byzantine ''

Philogelos ''Philogelos'' (), also titled or subtitled ''The Jests of Hierocles and Philagrius'', is a Greek-language book published in late antiquity that is the oldest known surviving collection of jokes. Context Although the ''Philogelos'' is the ol ...

'' from the first millennium. In Western Europe, the medieval fabliau and the Arab/Italian

novella A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most novelettes and short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) ...

built up a large body of humorous tales; but it was only with the ''

Facetiae The ''Facetiae'' is an anthology of jokes by Poggio Bracciolini (1380–1459), first published in 1470. It was the first printed joke book. The collection, "the most famous jokebook of the Renaissance", is notable for its inclusion of scatological ...

'' of Poggio (1451) that the anecdote first appears rendered down into joke form (with prominent punchline) in an early modern collection. Like his immediate successors Heinrich Bebel and Girolamo Morlini, Poggio translated his folk material from their original language into Latin, the universal European language of the time. From such universal collections, developed the particular vernacular jestbooks of the various European countries in the sixteenth century.

Elizabethan jestbooks

Tudor and Stuart jest books were typically anonymous collections of individual jests in English, a mix of verse and prose perhaps more comparable to the latter-day magazine than to a normal book. Some, however (following a German model), did attempt to link their jokes into a picaresque sort of narrative around one, often roguish hero, as with Richard Tarlton. Jest books took a generally mocking tone, with civility, and social superiors like the 'stupid scholar' as favourite targets. The low-life, realistic tone of the jest book, akin to coney-catching pamphlets, fed into the early English novels (or at least prose fiction) of writers like

Thomas Nashe Thomas Nashe (also Nash; baptised 30 November 1567 – c. 1601) was an English Elizabethan playwright, poet, satirist and a significant pamphleteer. He is known for his novel '' The Unfortunate Traveller'', his pamphlets including '' Pierce P ...

and

Thomas Deloney Thomas Deloney (born ; died in or shortly before 1600) was an English silk-weaver, novelist, and ballad writer. Biography Thomas Deloney was born sometime in the middle decades of the 16th century; the precise date is not recorded. Although ofte ...

. Jestbooks also contributed to popular stage entertainment, through such dramatists as Marlowe and

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...

. Playbooks and jestbooks were treated as forms of light entertainment, with jokes from the one being recycled in the other, and vice versa. Advances in printing meant that quantitatively jestbooks reached their greatest circulation in the 17th and 18th centuries; but qualitatively their contents was increasingly either a repetition of earlier publications or an artificial imitation of what had in the

Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The Roman symbol of Britannia (a female per ...

jest book been a genuine folk content. Bowdlerisation in the 19th century completed the fall of the English-language jest book from Elizabethan vitality to subsequent triviality.

Parallel traditions

*French jestbooks were widely drawn on in the work of Rabelais. Arguably at least, the French jestbook tradition survived unbowdlerised into the twentieth century. *Germany had a rich tradition of jestbooks, with

Till Eulenspiegel Till Eulenspiegel (; ) is the protagonist of a European narrative tradition. A German chapbook published around 1510 is the oldest known extant publication about the folk hero (a first edition of is preserved fragmentarily), but a background i ...

as a prominent character. *The first American jest book was published in 1787, and thereafter the genre flourished for some half a century, before giving way to the twin influence of censorship and the rise of the comic almanac.

References

{{Reflist, 2}

External links

Jestbooks (London)
Fiction forms Humour Jokes

Origins

Elizabethan jestbooks

Parallel traditions

See also

References

Further reading

External links