ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 explores Bakhtinian carnival inversion and commoner insurrection in the fifteenth-century tale of John the Reeve (c. 1450). It is argued that John repeatedly intermingles high and low, challenging class distinctions, while displaying a rebellious disregard for aristocratic authority. At the same time, the tale repeatedly stages a carnivalesque violence directed at the social body, culminating in John’s insurgent storming of the court to hold the king ‘checkmate’.
