The world upside-down in 16th century French literature and visual culture

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"In The World Upside-Down in 16th Century French Literature and Visual Culture Vincent Robert-Nicoud offers an interdisciplinary account of the topos of the world upside-down in early modern France. To call something 'topsy-turvy' in the sixteenth century is to label it as abnormal. The topos of the world upside-down evokes a world in which everything is inside-out and out of bounds: fish live in trees, children rule over their parents, and rivers flow back to their source. The world upside-down proves to be key in understanding how the social, political, and religious turmoil of sixteenth-century France was represented and conceptualised, and allows us to explore the dark side of the Renaissance by unpacking one of its most prevalent metaphors"--  Read more... Intro Contents Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction The Sixteenth-Century World Upside Down Chapter 1 Adages, Paradoxes and Emblems 1 Erasmus's Adages of Inversion 1.1 'To set the cart before the horse' (I, vii, 28) 1.2 Other Adages of Inversion 1.3 Foolish Adages in Rabelais and Bruegel 1.3.1 Gargantua's Youth and the Officers of Quinte Essence 1.3.2 Bruegel's Topsy-Turvy World 1.4 Polemical Adages in Baïf's Mimes 1.4.1 Adages and Animals 1.4.2 Adages of Folly 2 Paradoxes 2.1 Erasmus's Encomium Moriae 2.2 Lando's Paradossi and the Paradoxe contre les lettres 3 Moral Emblems3.1 Wisdom and Folly 3.1.1 La Perrière's Morosophie 3.1.2 Alciato's Emblemata 3.1.3 Other Emblem Books 3.2 Humility and Arrogance 3.2.1 Descriptive Emblems 3.2.2 Protestant Emblems 4 Carnivalesque Emblems 4.1 Carnival and Laughter 4.2 The Lower Body Stratum 4.2.1 The Male Lower Body Stratum 4.2.2 The Female Licentious Body 4.2.3 Scatological Emblems 5 Emblems of the Religious Wars 5.1 Social Disorders 5.1.1 The Ship of State 5.1.2 Discord 5.2 Polemic and Inversion 5.2.1 Secular Emblems 5.2.2 Religious Emblems 5.2.3 The World in Turmoil 5.2.4 Polemical Cooking Pots5.2.5 Animal Clerics 6 Conclusion Chapter 2 Rabelais's World Upside Down 1 Carnivalesque Rituals 1.1 Rabelais and Carnival 1.2 Carnival in Gargantua and Pantagruel 1.2.1 Epistémon's Katabasis 1.2.2 Fallen Kings 1.2.3 Jean Lemaire de Belges and François Villon 1.3 The Fight between Carnival and Lent in the Quart Livre 1.3.1 Quaresmeprenant 1.3.2 Pantagruel and the Andouilles 1.3.3 Mardigras 2 Grotesque Body 2.1 The World Upside Down of Antiphysie 2.2 The Microcosmic Body in Rabelais 2.2.1 World in Pantagruel's Mouth 2.2.2 Messere Gaster 2.3 The Metaphorical Lower Body2.3.1 The Ennasés 2.3.2 Grippe-Minaud and the Chats-fourrez 3 Wisdom and Folly 3.1 The Wisdom of Folly 3.2 Foolish Trials 3.3 Foolish Debates 3.3.1 Thaumaste and Nazedecabre 3.3.2 Triboullet 4 Conclusion Chapter 3 Religious Satire and Overturned Cooking Pots 1 The Cooking Pot Trope 1.1 Biblical Cooking Pots 1.2 Infernal Cooking Pots 1.3 The Cannibal's Cooking Pot 2 Huguenot Satires 2.1 Pamphlets and Libelles 2.1.1 Satyres chrestiennes de la cuisine papale 2.1.2 La Comédie du pape malade et tirant à sa fin 2.1.3 L'Extrême-Onction de la marmite papale2.1.4 La Polymachie des marmitons 2.1.5 La Desolation des freres de robe grise 2.2 Visual Images 2.2.1 Celuy qui en Satan se fie james nen a que tronperie 2.2.2 Le Renversement de la grand marmite 2.3 Eschatological Laughter 3 Rabelais's Posthumous Tradition 3.1 L'Isle Sonnante 3.2 The Songes drôlatiques de Pantagruel 3.3 Rabelais's Posterity 4 Catholic Responses 4.1 Biblical References 4.2 Cooking Pots and Cannibalism Chapter 4 Social and Cosmic Disorders 1 France as a World Upside Down 1.1 Hubris and Social Disorders