Book Review: Rabelais and His World

Book Review:

Rabelais and His World  by  Mikhail M. Baktin

In the history of Renaissance literature there have emerged literary figures like William Shakespeare, Cervantes, Victor Hugo and many others who have garnered tremendous repute on the world stage. But perhaps not most of these stalwarts project an image as enigmatic as that of Francoise Rabelais. Rabelais was a sixteenth century French Renaissance writer who also dabbled as a physician and Greek scholar. According to Mikhail Bakhtin, who authored the book around 1950, Rabelais remains as one of the least understood and unappreciated writers of his time. He can be considered as the so-called ‘notorious’ writers but, as we shall see further, therein lies his “genius” (the word these days has been critiqued so much, also by Bakhtin). Some of the key features of his writing are phantasmic non-conformity with repulsing connotations in text which is deeply rooted to the popular folk humor and sensibilities of the Middle Ages. One of his most prominent and well known works include Gargantua and Pantagruel, about the exploits of a giant father Gargantua and son Pantagruel. Mikhail Bakhtin partially bases his book about Rabelais after the detailed study of Gargantua and Pantagruel. The style of the voluminous text is laced with language that can be called risqué and therefore, this work faced a lot of banishment and censorship in France. The significance of his works is that it shook the perceptions of the middle age Renaissance baroque to question and reconstruct their taste in art and revive the folklore. His contribution does not limit itself to the literary fields only but also extends to the study of performance arts as well, in light of him conceptualizing the Carnivalesque and the genres of Grotesque Realism both in writing and in the sphere of performance.

The Carnivalesque

Carnivalesque is understood primarily as term used in the literary style and Bakhtin can be credited to expounding this concept through this book. Before embarking upon the project of illustrating the contributions of Rabelais, Bakhtin puts forward a rather relevant point, ie, there were two aspects of Renaissance period ranging from the varied forms of comic manifestations of parody in folk; and on the other hand, the serious official feudal culture. Laughter, then, according to Rabelais, is one of the most unexplored yet powerful instruments of social and political transgression(does transgression equal a upside down second world? A question to think about). For the spaces of Carnival to happen, the site of transgression, places like the market place become the ideal spots where laughter manifests itself. In any such given scenario, the type of language used also plays a very important role. Bakhtin notes that the examples of Gargantua and Pantagruel, two enormous giants, slinging excrement and urine, provide us with images that also come to form a very significant part of the language used such as the slangs and the swearing words. Yet, Bakhtin maintains, This certain type of debasing language used at the carnival, or the billingsgate, always referring to the lower-stratum of the physical body (genitals), was basically ambivalent, as genitals would also be shown with procreating and fertile connotations as well. Again, as an example, from the chapter calledLanguage of the Marketplace, he mentions Gargantua pissing for three months continuously, but this in-turn gives birth to the river Rhone in France, a symbol of positive fertility. This clearly explains the concept of ambivalent nature of carnival humor. Therefore, he sums up three distinct types of manifestations of the folk humor that were prevalent at that particular time :

1.- Ritual spectacles: carnival pageants, comic shows etc.

2.- Comic verbal compositions: parodies both oral and written.

3.- Various genres of billingsgate: curses, oaths, popular blazons.

Clowns and fools, especially dwarfs and giants, the significant catalysts to the manifestation of laughter, mimicking serious rituals formed an important aspect of the carnival, which also came to be known as the “feast of fools”. Bakhtin begins his book with the first chapter called the Rabelais and the History of Laughter, and in this way, he proposes laughter as a universal and wide-reaching character, which nonetheless, feeds on strengths like freedom and sentiments of the collective truth which concerns the people and their history. He points out that laughter is essentially unofficial, so inherently, it inhabits the virtue to parody and mock the serious looking claimers of the higher class. He is quick to mention about the ritual laughter which had the traditional sanctions and were prevalent all through the Europe of Middle Ages.

This sanctioned and ritual purgation of laughter allowed the people to venture into another world of non-officialdom. This certain other world consisted of everything opposite to the serious, no-nonsense high-brow social order. But this second world was quite part of the tradition and the folk comic rituals. Basically, it maintained the intrinsic consolidated duality of the human self and Bakhtin in this work, calls this particular phenomena as the “Two-World Condition”. Carnival then did not merely remain as a spectacle for the others, but everyone lived in it(great point elaborate a bit more. Carnival is life itself modeled on play).

Saturn devouvering his Son

Bakhtin makes a clear mention of the Roman Saturnalias festival which ushered the temporary but golden age upon earth. This particular “golden age” specifies the carnival time and called upon a style of life which must be lived ‘unusually’ with the spirit of carnival atleast for the time alloted for the celebrations. And this celebration of sorts is accompanied by the thrashing and uncrowing of the kings, as Rabelais mentions in the chapter called Popular-Festive Forms. From the same chapter he gives various additional instances kings dethroned from the voluminous texts of Gargantua and Pantagruel

Grotesque Realism

As has emerged from the previous discussion about the Bakhtin’sCarnivalesque, the human physical body becomes a potent apparatus of transgressive actions couples with folk humor. The exaggerated and hyperbolic use of the human body has emerged as the indelible part of the Carnivalesque traditions. According to Bakhtin, in the chapter called The Grotesque Image Of Body, the genre of Grotesque Realism looks at the human physical body as the extremely sexual, utopian and degraded and very earthly in essence. Bakhtin mentions earlier scholars like G. Shneegans’ The History Of Grotesque Satire where Shneegans is primarily focusing on Rabelais works and also Italian comic character Harlequin’scommediadell’arte. But Bakhtin points out that the works of these scholars are flawed in the fundamental aspect of ignoring the ambivalent nature of the grotesque. At this juncture, Bakhtin points out that Grotesque Realism deals with the physical body in a positive manner. The positivity is all about the abundant, festive and collective body which is preserved in the ‘banquet of the world’. He tells us that the basic principal of Grotesque realism is degradation.

Most essentially Bakhtin maintains that when Shneegans proclaims Rabelais as a satirical author, this as a preposition is entirely flawed. Since Shneegans is overlooking the very significant aspect of ambivalence, the coming together of lower and the upper strata and of positives and the negatives, thus, he is mistaking the grotesque of Rabelais as satirical. For instance, For satire to be established, ambivalence of the humor must be done away with. Buthere, as we have gathered from Bakhtin’s formulations, with the carnival, as the place of amalgamations of all sections of society, satire is impossible to take place because the basic nature of grotesque realism is ambivalence. According to Bakhtin, Shneegans is looking at exaggeration quantitavily, and not qualitativelyand therefore ignoring the fundamentals of grotesque. What can instead, be associated with the grotesque is the element of mockery and taunts.

Modern authors and artists like Alfred Jarry, Bertolt Brecht in theatre, poet Pablo Neruda etc have been credited by Bakhtin in his book for stimulating the grotesque in their works. Especially in the existentialist works of art and literature, like that of Franz Kafka in his Metamorphosesand others have significantly revived the grotesque mode of thinking and understanding of the social in art.

Conclusion :Transgression Now

Peter Stallybrass in his essay called The Politics and Poetics of Transgression,cites Mikhail Bakhtin’sRabelais and His World as one the seminal works in the Renaissance Cultural Studies. He is quick to add that although Bakhtin’s works features the Carnivalesque as a form but also inventively building upon the argument of carnival as a transgressive form. Stallybrass points out that the reversion of the set hierarchies in a carnival space serves as a potent yet populist and utopian version of the world to come. Body images in the Carnivalesque speak clearly of the social relations which provided popular imagery as against the upper elite class (social relations, yes..but is it always against upper class elite? Transgression as a category against the carnivalesque? Think of carnivalesque and transgression as two distinct modes of thinking).

But scholars like Terry Eagleton harbor a certain suspicion regardingBakhtin’s extremely positive embrace of the carnival. Eagleton expresses that perhaps carnival works as a ‘licensed release’ by the ruling order as a form of social control. According to Eagleton, the carnival in entirety aims towards preserving and strengthening the established powers of control. But Stallybrass sticks to his ground and re-emphasizes that the Carnival, nevertheless, is essentially laden with the transgressive potential, perhaps much more than what emerges out of Bakhin’s book on Rabelais.