Heldris de Cornuälle's Roman de Silence has in recent years received the attention from scholars this fascinating romance deserves, and has in particular provided rich pickings for gender and post-structuralist criticism. At last the modern exordial topos of the silence surrounding Silence can be dispensed with. However, most studies have concentrated on the text's treatment of gender politics, sexual orientation and the relationship between sexuality and textuality: weighty topics which allow little space for a consideration of the work's comic potential. To redress the balance, this essay sets out to demonstrate that humour contributes to the meaning of the Roman de Silence.

In the following study, several interrelated topics will be considered. After reassessing the Roman de Silence's Arthurian pedigree and generic classification, we shall examine Heldris's fruitful and often amusing response to an important Arthurian intertext: the oeuvre of Chrétien de Troyes. Reading against Chrétien's romances will highlight the sexual, grammatical and narrative incongruities which are fundamental to the Roman de Silence's comic effect. This intertexual humour is accompanied, moreover, by intergeneric play. For interwoven throughout the romance plot centring on an exemplary female ‘hero’ is a misogynist commentary (supplied by the narrator and several male characters) which recalls contemporary didactic poetry and the fabliau, two genres known to exploit the ‘woman question’ humorously. In this essay the analysis of intertextual and intergeneric comedy will be supported by a more traditional exploration of the verbal, structural and situational humour which is found at every level of the narrative.