‘By God’s Arse’ Genre, Humour and Religion in William Wager’s Moral Interludes

Abstract

This chapter reflects on the theoretical problem raised by the depiction of reprobate protagonists and their demise in two plays that present themselves emphatically as comedies and humorous drama. Rather than taken seriously as fully fledged Christian comedies, William Wager’s Reformation interludes The Longer Thou Livest the More Fool Thou Art and Enough Is as Good as a Feast have been interpreted as early tragedies or dismissed as flawed comedies because of what critics have regarded as their tragic endings and coarse humour. I argue that while the plays’ theology was informed by the new Protestant doctrine of double predestination, its humour was still firmly rooted in a late medieval appreciation of comedy as a weapon against evil and instrument of Christian hope. From this perspective, even the portrayals of the deaths of the protagonists can be perceived as comforting and fitting as genuinely comedic endings. The plays help us gain a more complex understanding of the historical correlation between humour and religion.