The monsters that laugh back: Humour as a rhetorical apophasis in medieval monstrology

Abstract

Monsters and humorousness, although contradictory at first glance, are often both complementary and similar in their roles under closer scrutiny: monstrosities may elicit laughter and ridicule, and instances of humour may be frightening and threatening. Both are the effect of surprising juxtapositions of opposing elements and values, both rely on a degree of cultural indeterminacy and both may simultaneously carry serious yet entertaining admonitions and function as cultural markers in critical circumstances. The debate on approaching monstrosity through humour and its converse displays a rhetorical effect analogous to Pseudo-Dionysian apophasis. This chapter explores parallels between the way monstrosities and humorousness have been theorised and the apophatic approach towards expressing reality in language present in Anglo-Saxon literature. It argues that the complementariness of the monstrous and the humorous transforms them into rhetorical tools addressing human cognitive limits and limits of humanity itself. As its study material, the chapter chiefly considers the Liber monstrorum de diversis generibus, the Exeter Book's poem The Whale and one of the Exeter Book's poetic riddles.