and its resources, making it go from bad to worse. In this caustic satire, the playwright
presents the powerful as malicious fools and dramatizes the social effects of their folly.
Another type of allegorical farce is the sottie, in which the fools (sots) play no role in
bringing about the social abuses that are condemned but limit themselves to observing
and reporting the follies of the world. The effect of the satire is no less sharp, since their
foolish and comic commentary causes spectators to compare the world they know with
the utopian dream of an idealized society.
Alan E.Knight
[See also: BASOCHE; PATHELIN, FARCE DE MAISTRE; SOTTIE; STAGING OF
PLAYS; THEATER]
Tissier, André, ed. Recueil de farces (1450–1550). 7 vols. Geneva: Droz, 1986–93.
Bowen, Barbara C. Les caractéristiques essentielles de la farce française et leur survivance dans
les années 1550–1620. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1964.
Knight, Alan E. Aspects of Genre in Late Medieval French Drama. Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1983.
Lewicka, Helina. Études sur l’ancienne farce française. Paris: Klincksieck, 1974.
Rey-Flaud, Bernadette. La farce ou la machine à rire: théorie d’un genre dramatique, 1450–1550.
Geneva: Droz, 1984.
FATRAS/FATRASIE
. These terms designate two related but distinct poetic forms. Sometimes considered a
kind of medieval surrealism, both involve the creation of apparent nonsense, often by
such methods as the juxtaposition of incongruities or the attribution of animate
characteristics to inanimate objects. The dislocation of logic is limited to themes or
images, however, while the grammar and syntax of the poems remain conventional and
correct.
Both genres originated in northern France. Fatrasie dates from the 13th century;
fatras, from the 14th and 15th. Most examples are anonymous, but eleven fatrasies are
from the pen of Philippe de Remi, sire de Beaumanoir. Both are fixed forms. The form of
the fatrasie is aabaab/ babab (in lines of five and seven syllables). The fatras began with
two lines (AB) often taken from a popular song. The first of those lines is then repeated
as the first line of the body of the poem, while B becomes the last line (thus, AB
Aabaab/babaB). Occasional “double fatras” occur, with a second stanza constructed on
an inversion of the initial distich.
Fatras continued to be composed after the Middle Ages, but they became fatras
possibles, with simple parody replacing the linguistic inventiveness and “absurd”
juxtapositions of the earlier genre.
Norris J.Lacy
[See also: BEAUMANOIR, PHILIPPE DE REMI, SIRE DE]
Porter, Lambert C. La fatrasie et le fatras: essais sur la poésie irrationnelle en France au moyen
âge. Geneva: Droz, 1960.
Zumthor, Paul. “Fatrasie, fatrassiers.” In Langue, texte, énigme. Paris: Seuil, 1975, pp. 68–88.
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