Glasberg examines the Eulenspiegel texts as critical and contemporary reflections of a greater affect control which occurred during the shift from the medieval to the early modern epoch—a time of increasing economic complexity and nontraditional forms of social interdependency. Within the Eulenspiegel texts are the themes of 1) an aggressive intermixing of what should be kept separate, 2) an aggressive use of excrement, and 3) a criticism of the new dependency relationship within society. Glasberg discerns a contemporary "Eulenspiegelian personality." This personality is characterized by a withdrawal from society and a semisublimation of aggression directed against society's complacency and dedicated to raising its consciousness.