“PURGER LA MORNE HUMEUR”: UN TOPOS DISTINCTIF? APPROCHE STATISTIQUE DU VOCABULAIRE MEDICAL DANS LES TEXTES LIMINAIRES DES RECUEILS NARRATIFS PLAISANTS (XVE-XVIIE SIECLES)
“PURGE THE DARK MOOD”: A DISTINCTIVE TOPOS? STATISTICAL APPROACH TO MEDICAL VOCABULARY IN THE PRELIMINARY TEXTS OF PLEASANT NARRATIVE COLLECTIONS (15th-17th CENTURIES)

Summary/Abstract: This paper’s goal is to test the topos of curative laughter, thanks to digital humanities. Is this idea truly specific and recurrent throughout the modern collections of merry tales? To determine if it is so, we used a freeware corpus analysis toolkit to check on various paratexts, that head 89 jestbooks, 158 comic literary works, and 311 serious works, published in French between the end of the XVth century and 1699. We managed a quantitative and qualitative study about the way the lexicon linked to health, cure and medicine is used in each corpus.We could thus highlight the specificity of collections gathering jests and merry tales. It does not lie only in the claim that relaxation is good for health (a claim they share with all comic works), but also and more precisely in the recurrent use of the word melancholy, for commercial purposes and legitimation of pleasure. Specific as well is the link between pseudo-medical considerations and other practical tips about the uses of a book designed for collective consumption.

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