Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. Contents v
3. List of Illustrations vii
4. Acknowledgements ix
5. Introduction: Companionable Nonsense 1
6. Part I: Notes towards a History of English Nonsense
7. 1 Buba, Blictrix, Bufbaf: Medieval Theory and Practice of Nonsense 11
8. 2 ‘The Best Fooling’: Every Man Out of His Humour, Twelfth Night and Early Modern English Nonsense Games 31
9. 3 Nonsense in the Age of Reason 47
10. 4 ‘The Light of Sense / Goes Out’: Romantic Poetry and Victorian Nonsense Poetry 60
11. 5 Victorian Nonsense and Its Kinships 81
12. 6 Shady Pleasures: Modernist Nonsense 98
13. 7 Mid-Century Nonsense and Destructive Mockery 114
14. Part II: Global Nonsenses
15. 8 In Search of Ancient Greek Nonsense 127
16. 9 Traditional Moorings, Modern Practices: Indian Literary Nonsense 145
17. 10 Signs and Wonders: Two Approaches to Nonsense in Russia 163
18. 11 ‘What’s the French for fiddle-de-dee?’: Nonsense in French 182
19. 12 Italian Nonsense: Tradition, Translation, Translocation, Transcodification (and a Trinity) 199
20. Part III: Contexts and Connections
21. 13 English ‘hibber-gibber’ and the ‘jargon of France’: Rabelaisian Nonsense in Translation 215
22. 14 Musical Foundations of Nonsense 231
23. 15 Doubtful Girls and Silly Women: Nonsense and Gender 247
24. 16 Queer Nonsense: Query? 264
25. 17 Humans, and Other Nonsense Animals 281
26. 18 Nonsense Among the Philosophers 300
27. 19 ‘Word beyond Speech’: Nonsense and the Sacred 311
28. Notes on Contributors 325
29. Index 327