SOURCE: "The Function of the Prologue in Le Jeu de Saint Nicolas," in Romance Notes, Vol. X, No. 1, Autumn, 1968, pp. 168-73.

In the essay below, Schroeder contends that the prologue of Jeu de Saint Nicolas serves to heighten the humor of the play.

A recent article on Jean Bodel's Jeu de saint Nicolas¹ suggests that the primacy of the comic in the play forces a re-examination of the function of the so-called "serious" scenes. However, no account is taken of the Prologue and its possible relationship to the Jeu itself. The present paper will attempt to determine its function within the framework of this essentially comic play.

Albert Henry, in the introductory notes to his recent edition, examines the style, vocabulary and syntax of the Prologue and concludes that "… le prologue nous paraît apocryphe et probablement de plusieurs dizaines d'années postérieur au miracle dramatisé".² A...