In this playful paper I examine the ways in which Ubu Roi, that inaugural modernist assault upon the pomposity and rigidity of high dramatic tradition, finds most of its roots in age old folk dramatic forms and rituals.
Drawing upon Bakhtin's Rabelais and his World, I make an extended comparison between the character of Ubu and the behaviour demanded of medieval and renaissance Lords of Misrule or Player Kings. I then proceed to an analogy between Jarry's intention in creating the Ubu plays, and the cathartic satirical function of Twelfth Night and Carnival festivities.
Some mention is also made of the glove puppet guignol origins of the Ubu plays, and of the qualities of timelessness and placelessness which their characters share with the archetypes of traditional street glove puppet shows.
Lastly, I suggest that Ubu is a daring attempt on Jarry's part to break down the classico-romantic equation of wickedness with seriousness. In this vein, some explanation of how the demonic may come to swallow up the devilish, and of the need, in an enfeebled society, to transform any and all mockery from constructive comic mischievousness into varieties of inadmissible evil.