Talk:Fabliau

More examples?

I'm studying the fabliaux right now in graduate school, and I'm going to work on expanding this article. I would also be more than happy to include more examples on the page if people think it would help define the genre better. I don't think that any of these stories merit their own pages because they can be summarized in a paragraph, like that of "The Snow Baby." Thoughts? If I don't hear back, I'll more than likely add them anyway, and people can remove them if/when they find it not useful.Portia1780 18:33, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I also think that you should do as much with this entry as you feel necessary. I think that the "representative tales" section is clumsily written and needs revision. Peaky beaky (talk) 00:30, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

bawdy fabliau

I'm guessing that the last tale under "Example tales"- "Le Chevalier qui fist les cons parler ("The Knight who made vaginas speak") is a joke. Surely no tale of that name was performed in public hundreds of years ago! You could put it back, or put a proper translation, if I'm wrong. anon 04:38, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

It's real. -- Stbalbach 02:24, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

The word "con" is a french slang for "idiot". It doesn't mean vagina in this sentance.

24.09.07 It does actually mean vagina. The fabliau is about a knight who has the power to make vaginas speak. Many of the fabliaux were highly obscene by today's standards.

My understanding is that cons is used as a pun here. Cons means both stories and cunts, so the title could either read as The knight who told stories or The knight who made cunts speak. Personally, were I releasing an English translation I would call it something like The raccunteur or even The knight who cunjured voices as there is no straight translation which conveys the spirit of the original. I think that The knight who made cunts speak should appear here as it is a reasonably straight translation of one of the meanings of the title. I have edited it to this from The man who made cunts and assholes speak, because even though the knight in the story could make assholes speak (if the cunt had been plugged somehow) it is not implied in the original title. I think I may re-read the story and give a synopsis given how much interest this has generated. Conrad Leviston 16:20, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

For another example of this theme in the Middle Ages, see the lai Lecheor.Portia1780 18:27, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

The link is now referenced for my preferred translation ("cons" = "cunts", not "cunts and assholes", see my reasoning above). I discovered that the item was already referenced for the C&A translation Online translation, but it was located in the wrong part of the text, and so was not immediately obvious as to what it was referencing. At any rate, it clearly does not mean idiot in the context of this story! Conrad Leviston (talk) 15:35, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

• An IP had made some wholesale changes (which I have just reverted); one of their changes was precisely this one, "cunts and assholes." Drmies (talk) 19:03, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

References

I have added Joseph Bédier's book entitled Les Fabliaux, as it is one of the seminal works on the subject (albeit in French!). I can add more references relevant to the source text if that seems helpful after I've finished my dissertation (which is on the fabliaux). (Sir Loin Ofsteak (talk) 13:25, 20 August 2008 (UTC))

• Where is it? I looked for it in the last version, but couldn't find it. Drmies (talk) 19:12, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Is the Columbian Cyclopedia of 1897 still considered a reliable source? Do we have anything more up-to-date for the claim that fabliaux came "out of the orient"? 174.89.241.46 (talk) 12:50, 19 January 2011 (UTC)7:49 EST 19 January 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.89.241.46 (talk) 12:48, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

• I agree. And, in fact, the Oxford Companion to French Literature (OUP, 1959) says (p. 262) that "The view that these tales had an oriental origin is now discredited." (Unhelpfully without giving any further information.) findlayjy (talk) 11:33, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Reversal

I have just made a grand reversal to an earlier version. Most of the intermediate revisions were to disambiguate, and I apologize for undoing these improvements--I'll try to rework them into the article. However, an edit made on 15 May 2009 was so broad in its scope and so, well, destructive, that I reverted to the edit just before that. IP 63.215.28.14 had removed a lot of sourced content and the references that went along with it. They also removed links to other wikis (articles in other languages, that is), and what they added were lenghty, lenghty plot summaries and a link to a geocities website that had some translations (they also removed some templated references and reinserted them without templates). I don't want to speculate on the reason of those reversals and the geocities addition, but the grand removal of sourced material was unjustified. I encourage editors to compare the two versions, the IP's revision and the current version. Drmies (talk) 19:12, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

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