|
Flyting or fliting is a contest consisting of the exchange of insults, often conducted in verse, between two parties.〔Parks, Ward. "Flyting, Sounding, Debate: Three Verbal Contest Genres", ''Poetics Today'' 7.3, Poetics of Fiction (1986:439-458) provided some variable in the verbal contest, to provide a basis for differentiating the genres of flyting, sounding, and debate.〕 == Description == Flyting is a ritual, poetic exchange of insults practiced mainly between the 5th and 16th centuries. The root is the Old English word ''flītan'' meaning quarrel (from Old Norse word ''flyta'' meaning provocation). Examples of flyting are found throughout Norse, Anglo-Saxon and Medieval literature involving both historical and mythological figures. The exchanges would become extremely provocative, often involving accusations of cowardice or sexual perversion. Norse literature contains stories of the gods flyting. For example, in ''Lokasenna'' the god Loki insults the other gods in the hall of Ægir and the poem ''Hárbarðsljóð'' in which Hárbarðr (generally considered to be Odin in disguise) engages in flyting with Thor. In the confrontation of Beowulf and Unferð in the poem ''Beowulf'', flytings were used as either a prelude to battle or as a form of combat in their own right.〔Clover, Carol (1980). "The Germanic Context of the Unferth Episode", ''Spoeculum'' 55 pp. 444-468.〕 In Anglo-Saxon England, flyting would take place in a feasting hall. The winner would be decided by the reactions of those watching the exchange. The winner would drink a large cup of beer or mead in victory, then invite the loser to drink as well.〔''Quaestio: selected proceedings of the Cambridge Colloquium in Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic'' Volumes 2-3, p43-44, University of Cambridge, 2001.〕 The 13th century poem ''The Owl and the Nightingale'' and Geoffrey Chaucer's ''Parlement of Foules'' contain elements of flyting. Flyting became public entertainment in Scotland in the 15th and 16th centuries where makars would engage in verbal contests of provocative, often sexual and scatological but highly poetic abuse. Flyting was permitted despite the fact that the penalty for profanities in public was a fine of 20 shillings (over £300 in prices) for a lord or a whipping for servant.〔 James IV and James V encouraged "court flyting" between poets for their entertainment and occasionally engaged with them. ''The Flyting of Dumbar and Kennedie'' records a contest between William Dunbar and Walter Kennedy in front of James IV, which includes the earliest recorded use of the word shit as a personal insult.〔''An encyclopedia of swearing: the social history of oaths, profanity, foul language, and ethnic slurs in the English-speaking world'', Geoffrey Hughes, M.E. Sharpe, 2006, p175〕 In 1536 the poet Sir David Lyndsay composed a ribald 60 line flyte to James V after the King demanded a response to a flyte. Flytings appear in several of William Shakespeare's plays. Margaret Galway analysed 13 comic flytings and several other ritual exchanges in the tragedies.〔Margaret Galway, ''Flyting in Shakespeare's Comedies'', The Shakespeare Association Bulletin'', vol. 10, 1935, pp. 183-91.〕 Flytings also appear in the Nicholas Udall's ''Ralph Roister Doister'' and John Still' ''Gammer Gurton's Needle'' from the same era. While Flyting died out in Scottish writing after the Middle Ages it continued for writers of Celtic background. Robert Burns parodied flyting in his poem, "To a Louse," and James Joyce's poem "The Holy Office" is a curse upon society by a bard.〔"flyting." ''Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature''. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1995. ''Literature Resource Center''. Web. 1 Oct. 2015.〕 Joyce played with the traditional two character exchange by making one of the characters society as a whole. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「flyting」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|