On Bakhtin’s "Carnival" and "Grotesque"

Mikhail Bakhtin begins his work, Rabelais and His World with an introductory essay. For him, Rabelais is the most difficult classical author of world literature and it is impossible to understand him with ongoing artistic and ideological conceptions. He intends to reconstruct a new method in order to evaluate his writings accordingly and therefore begins to define important characteristics of folk culture. He divides this main heading in three categories; ritual spectacles, comic verbal compositions, various genres of billingsgate, and tries to interpret the human behaviors in carnival activities. He states that the form of carnivals was distinct from the official ceremonies. Additionally there was a distinction between the two concepts; carnivals and theatrical performances. Carnivals were standing between art and life. Moreover, there was no distinction between spectators and actors. There were no footlights; everyone was participating. Carnivals, unlike official, feudal, political ceremonies, were offering a kind of nonofficial type of worldly experience. Thus there was a two world condition. According to him, the two world condition is crucial in the way that it enables us to fully understand Renaissance and Medieval cultural consciousness. Carnivals had a universal spirit. It was referring all humanity and the extra humane and earthly subjects such as planets as well. In the line between art and life, carnival people were experiencing both real and the ideal, and that was the reason why carnivals were second-life of people. The festivity had a practical content, also had spiritual and ideological ones, which evolves it into a position in which particular philosophical content occurs. One of the important aspects of the carnival activity is about hierarchy. In carnivals, ranks of people were no longer valid; every participant was equal, thus the true human experience was lived. Bakhtin describes this situation of lack of hierarchy as a temporary suspension. On the other hand, Bakhtin emphasizes the activity of laughter; it was freed from religious dogmatism, mysticism and piety, and from magic as well. Laughter turns its subjects into flesh, besides it degrades and materializes. First of all, laughter was not individual; people were laughing all together. Secondly, it was universal; entire world was seen by the participants and laughter was directed to everyone. Thirdly, it was ambivalent; on one hand it was gay, triumphant, but mocking and deriding on the other.
_
The notion of ambivalence is also very important in Bakhtin’s interpretation of the grotesque. According to him, grotesque image is something which represents an unfinished metamorphosis of death and birth, of growth and becoming. It is frightening and humorous at the same time. It is between the real and the imaginary. It is incomplete, and this aspect challenges Renaissance perception of body. Principal of human body in Renaissance realism regards body as one complete object. It is atomized, and designed mathematically as complete material body like Da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man”. Bakhtin’s one of the main arguments is that grotesque is highly related with carnival spirit and it remained till today, marginalized, turned and interpreted into other forms such like romantic or modernist grotesque, but it survived. Bakhtin also refers to Wolfgang Kayser’s ideas, in which he stresses the element of alienation in grotesque imagery. For him there is something alien, hostile in that imagery; the actual world becomes alien because in carnival spirit there is the possibility to experience an ideal, utopian world. People return into themselves and the world is destroyed. Kayser also introduces the concept of id in grotesque interpretation. It is not in Freudian sense; it is an “alien, inhuman power, governing the world, men, their life and behavior”. He talks about “puppets” and “madness”. For him, there is something alien in madmen, on the contrary in grotesque, madmen exists to escape the existing world, presenting different perceptions.
_
In grotesque image, death was associated with life. Bakhtin states that Renaissance saw the body as a complete whole, and a deathless one. I suggest that today, the carnival spirit is deeply hidden, because of the tendency of enlightenment to keep death hidden. Adorno and Horkheimer suggested the notion of “mimicking death”; that humans turned themselves into “things” because they were afraid of death. Bakhtin underlines that people in carnivals were not “things”; they were experiencing the two worlds all together. Besides, Adorno suggests the concept of “authentic art” which brings the element of knowledge and element of magic together. I think grotesque image is partially related with this concept; it is neither fully “knowable” nor fully “magical” but includes perceptions of both. It is fantastic in Tzvetan Todorov’s understanding. Adorno and Horkheimer in “Dialectic of Enlightenement” were suggesting that enlightenment was seeing in the animate what’s inanimate. It brings life into non-living mechanisms, by ultimate demythologization and disenchantment. There were no universal spirits and gods, everything were explainable with numbers and positivist knowledge, which later constituted the myth of enlightenment. Grotesque imagery at this sense seems something resisting against enlightenment. It is revolutionary and distorting; it seems to me like that while enlightenment tries to demythologize concepts, grotesque brings up new concepts that are between life and death, actuality and art. It is “demythologisable” to a certain degree, but not totally ever, or it is something as an escape route from demythologizing of enlightenment. Modern Grotesque is practiced in art today and maybe popular culture (or pop culture) can be said to include a kind of carnival spirit in itself.
_
Lastly, Bakhtin’s ideas on carnival spirit may be related with Karl Marx’s thoughts; in the way which proposes that it is in human’s nature to be social. In carnivals, human socialize, without any hierarchies. For Marx, being social is a fundamental human need, which approves Bakhtin’s understanding of the carnival spirit. Furthermore, Marx emphasizes labor, suggests that humans connect themselves to other people, and creates something which gives joy to other people. In other words; humans define themselves in relation to others. Bakhtin’s understanding of carnival may also be interpreted in Marxist methodology; in carnivals, people join together, regardless of their social ranks, they are both actors and spectators, they form some kind of labor relationship, create humor, speak in abusive tones with intimacy and give joy to each other. Alienation for Marx occurs because capitalism sets distance between laborer and the product s/he produces, thus the laborer cannot connect him/herself with other people. Carnival spirit, with its utopian realization and escapement from the official, seems to be actualizing a kind of model for human relations which Marx desires. For Bakhtin, carnival spirit includes “true human” experiences in its essence. But Bakhtin is not determinist like Marx, because he thinks that the carnival spirit only introduces temporary suspension of the official and hierarchical.
_
Thus, carnival spirit will never truly be fulfilled.
_