As a reaction to the serious religious and romantic
writings of the medieval period, jest books were compilations of witty sayings,
often centered on a specific character.
They were popular in the 1500s, especially in Italy. In England, Richard Tarleton, a famous comic
actor of Elizabethan times, is believed to have created the stage role of the
“yokel” and also to have written one or more jest books, although not all the
titles attributed to him are believed to have been written by Tarleton.
Right is an image from a jest book, the source is on the bottom.
While I am on the subject of illustrations, the approximation of the J above is from a new flickr photostream I have found courtesy of SHARP. I am a member and find many interesting historical factoids by reading the listserv. The photo comes from https://www.flickr.com/photos/bookhistorian/. My thanks to Paul Dijstelberge for sharing these wonderful photographs. For more about his work on Book History, please visit one of his blogs (this one is in English) http://abeautifulbook.wordpress.com/.
No comments:
Post a Comment