Contents

pp v-vi

List of Illustrations

pp vii-viii

Acknowledgements

pp ix-x

Introduction: Companionable Nonsense

pp 1-10

Part I - Notes towards a History of English Nonsense

pp 11-12

1 - Buba, Blictrix, Bufbaf: Medieval Theory and Practice of Nonsense

pp 13-30

2 - ‘The Best Fooling’: Every Man Out of His Humour, Twelfth Night, and Early Modern English Nonsense Games

pp 31-46

3 - Nonsense in the Age of Reason

pp 47-59

4 - ‘The Light of Sense | Goes Out’: Romantic Poetry and Victorian Nonsense Poetry

pp 60-80

5 - Victorian Nonsense and Its Kinships

pp 81-97

6 - Shady Pleasures: Modernist Nonsense

pp 98-113

7 - Mid-Century Nonsense and Destructive Mockery

pp 114-126

Part II - Global Nonsenses

pp 127-128

8 - In Search of Ancient Greek Nonsense

pp 129-144

9 - Traditional Moorings, Modern Practices: Indian Literary Nonsense

pp 145-162

10 - Signs and Wonders: Two Approaches to Nonsense in Russia

pp 163-181

11 - ‘What’s the French for fiddle-de-dee?’: Nonsense in French

pp 182-198

12 - Italian Nonsense: Tradition, Translation, Translocation, Transcodification (and a Trinity)

pp 199-214

Part III - Contexts and Connections

pp 215-216

13 - English ‘hibber-gibber’ and the ‘jargon of France’: Rabelaisian Nonsense in Translation

pp 217-230

14 - Musical Foundations of Nonsense

pp 231-246

15 - Doubtful Girls and Silly Women: Nonsense and Gender

pp 247-263

16 - Queer Nonsense: Query?

pp 264-280

17 - Humans, and Other Nonsense Animals

pp 281-299

18 - Nonsense Among the Philosophers

pp 300-310

19 - ‘Word beyond Speech’: Nonsense and the Sacred

pp 311-324

Notes on Contributors

pp 325-326

Index

pp 327-339