[Sca-cooks] persona play (was FYI)

[Sue Clemenger]

"Fabliaux" is the plural form of "fabliau," a word related, in turn, to
our "fable."
According to my dictionary (which I consulted because I
kinda-but-not-exactly knew what it was), a fabliau is:
"a short, usually comic, frankly coarse, and often cynical tale in verse
popular in the 12th and 13th centuries."
Sounds like an earlier version of some of Chaucer's raunchier stories.
Or early ancestors of some of the gender-bending you see in some of
Shakespeare.
--Maire (not as good as Lainie with this sort of thing, but giving it
her best shot ;-)

Stefan li Rous wrote:
>
> 'Lainie replied to me with:
> >>For various reasons (including why would you want to go down in status
> >>rather then up), gender changing in the Middle Ages seems to have been women
> >>dressing as men, rather than the opposite direction.
> >
> > Yes. *UNLESS* you are in a fabliaux or other work of period fiction. Then
> > all bets are off.
> So, what is a "fabliaux"?
>