m of care – jan 30 25
rabelais and his world by mikhail bakhtin reading group – session 4 – [https://museum.care/events/reading-group-mikhail-bakhtin-s-book-rabelais-session-4/]:
This is our long-awaited reading group on David Graeber’s favorite Mikhail Bakhtin’s Rabelais and His World.
We will discuss Chapter Two: The Language of the Marketplace in Rabelais.
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notes/quotes from meeting:
isabel jacobs: intro – only rule of monastery was: do what you will.. not life of rules but of pleasure.. the strictest rule is that there is no rule except your own pleasure.. the freedom of spirit in carnival in contrast w everyday life.. laughter sweeps over to everyday life.. p 97.. breaks thru narrow walls.. suggests might be a new/free way of life.. p 100.. men suspicious of seriousness and a truth in laughter.. relation between carnival and carnal.. bodiness.. do you laugh today like they did then.. a free laughter.. laughter purifies from dogmatism.. multiplicity of freedom as related to freedom
nika: this ch history of relationship to laughter.. baktin doesn’t talk about fascism/stalinism he experienced.. how fascism is related to carnival.. first group talking about trump being carnivalesque.. clown.. and today.. all govt has to resign.. everything upside down.. train of relationship between history of laughter.. in and out and in and out.. 68 bakhtin was super popular.. then came back around occupy.. so ideas correlating to biggest political moments
isabel: carnival liberating.. but also the fool as being oppressive
nika: i started to think.. today don’t want to dismantle rules.. replace rules w more strict rules.. romanticism (not fixed nature.. not linear time) vs enlightenment
another link to book given in chat: https://archive.org/details/bakhtinmikhailrabelaisandhisworld1984/page/n143/mode/1up?view=theater
nika: something about rabelais was really disgusting for readers.. how to apply that to current reality.. that looks carnivalesque.. but not at all
john phillips: essence of carnivalesque is that it is a sattire .. looking at powers above as absurd.. so impossible for powers themselves to be carnivalesque
isabel: something about movement from below that can’t be opposed from above
nika: but trump positions self as for those below.. so how does it happen and why
stas: and some from below do buy this
leop: something about reusing aesthetics of carnival from above.. using a language that comes from below.. for econ/political power.. claiming to be coming from below.. but completely opposite.. ie: venice
nika: what is not understandable for me.. clear correlation between ideas of enlightenment and fascism.. via bakhtin.. obsenities.. voltaire knows how humans should be.. convictions of universe shouldn’t exist.. fixed ideas of human nature.. rational idea of what world is.. thru enlightenment.. am i right
isabel: in this morality.. rationality.. something is missing..
nika: stas.. you were talking about david’s possibilities.. referring to way upper/lower classes relate.. and how jokes/laughter org it
stas: image of paradise of lower: material abundance.. lot of food et al.. of upper: can’t device from condition of existence.. they were imagining a place where people don’t have to eat.. imagine something opposite of what common people imagine.. against common people.. ie: this primitive animals can only think of food.. we think of not having to eat.. defining self as against the other..
nika: so paradise description is description of poor peopel..
kyrill potapov: see romanticism as limited in many ways..
to me.. this passage is strong on the message of letting go .. of rules, supposed to’s, definition..maybe esp in regard to language.. in order to be free.. people say w/o rules/proper-language/order how would we get along.. but ie: p 145: ‘I want to understand you, I study your obscure language’... obscure language (idiosyncratic jargon) as a safeguard of being out there but maintaining your true self ness.. if people want to actually ‘get to know you’ have to actually listen to whatever/however you’re communicating.. rather than making you communicate like them.. it’s like a built in encryption.. and as a warning of sorts.. to not get so caught up in definites/definitions/understandings/meanings/intellect.. which.. laughter seems to help make irrelevant.. by reminding us of our natural spontaneity/unpredictability
nika: he’s talking to sensors.. not talking what he wants to say
nika: i see 1\ not fixed human nature 2\ linear time
nika: david on everybody is an artist.. everybody is an anarchist.. to kirill .. this idea of nature something you have to tune into .. antidote to the fascism that knows how to do things
isabel: slogan on first page.. do what you will..
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notes/quotes from ch 2 (pp 169-220 in pdf.. 145-195 in actual book)[https://monoskop.org/images/7/70/Bakhtin_Mikhail_Rabelais_and_His_World_1984.pdf]:
169 (of 508 in pdf).. 145 (of 483 in actual book)
CHAPTER TWO
The Language of the Marketplace in RabelaisI want to understand you, I study your obscure language.
(A. S. PUSHKIN, “POEM COMPOSED DURING A SLEEPLESS NIGHT”)
yeah that.. that’s what safeguards the idiosyncratic jargon ness of self-talk as data
We shall examine first of all those elements of Rabelais’ language that, from the seventeenth century on, were a stumbling block for his admirers and readers, those that La Bruyere considered “filthy
depravation” and Voltaire “impertinence.” Let us call these components conditionally and metaphorically the marketplace and billingsgate elements of the novel. It was precisely this language that the Abbe Marsy and Abbe Perraud tried to expurgate in the eighteenth century and George Sand in the nineteenth. These elements still prevent public reading of Rabelais, although in other respects no author is better suited for such reading.
so did they legit want to know? or pressured to think they want to know?..
171 (147)
The very image of the boy must be revised. He is the symbol of youth, of immaturity and incompleteness. Such an image holds good only superficially; Rabelais’ youth is the youth of antiquity,
the “playing boy” of Heraclitus. From the historic point of view, Rabelais’ cynicism belongs to the most ancient stratum of his novel.172 (148)
These examples prove that the slinging of excrement and drenching in urine are traditional debasing gestures, familiar not only to grotesque realism but to antiquity as well. Their debasing meaning was generally known and understood. We can find probably in every language such expressions as “I shit on you.” (Bowdlerized equivalents are: “I spit on you” or “I sneeze on you.”)
177 (153)
First of all, these elements are not isolated; they are an organic part of the entire system of images and style. They become isolated and specific *only for modern literary consciousness. Within the system of **grotesque realism and popular festive forms they were an essential part of the imagery representing the material bodily lower stratum. True, they were unofficial in character, but so too was all popular-festive literature of the Middle Ages, so too was laughter. We, therefore, brought out the billingsgate and marketplace images only conventionally. We mean by these terms all that is directly linked with the life of the people, bearing its mark of ***nonofficial freedom; but at the same time these
images cannot be referred to as popular-festive literature in the strict sense of this word.. First of all, we have in mind certain forms of familiar speech-curses, profanities, and oaths-and second the colloquialisms of the marketplace:
*to me.. ‘organic’ ness has been squashed/covered by lit & num as colonialism since forever
**getting impression that ie: excretion throwing/drowning, profanities, et al.. are assume ***nonofficial freedom.. just because ie: counter, rebellious, et al
black science of people/whales law
The marketplace of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance was a world in itself, a world which was one; all “performances” in this area, from loud cursing to the organized show, had something in common and were imbued with the same atmosphere of freedom, frankness, and familiarity. Such elements of familiar speech as profanities, oaths, and curses were fully legalized in the marketplace and were easily adopted by all the festive genres, even by Church drama. The marketplace was the center of all that is unofficial; it enjoyed a certain extraterritoriality in a world of official order and official ideology, it always remained “with the people.”
to me.. whalespeak
178 (154)
This territory, as we have said, was a peculiar second world within the official medieval order and was
ruled by a special type of relationship, a *free, familiar, marketplace relationship. Officially the palaces, churches, institutions, and private homes were dominated by hierarchy and etiquette, but in the
marketplace a special kind of speech was heard, almost a language of its own, quite unlike the language of Church, palace, courts, and institutions. It was also unlike the tongue of official literature or of the ruling classes-the aristocracy, the nobles, the high-ranking clergy and the top burghers-though the elemental force of the folk idiom penetrated even these circles. On feast days, especially
during the carnivals, this force broke through every sphere, and even through the Church. as in “the feast of fools.” The festive marketplace combined many genres and forms, all filled with” the same ***unofficial spirit.
*to me.. not free if market ness.. ie: 10-day-care-center\ness et al.. of math and men.. graeber violence/quantification law.. et al
**idiosyncratic jargon ness.. but need to undo our hierarchical listening for that dance to dance
***need even deeper than what anyone has ever had.. ie: sans any form of measuring, accounting, people telling other people what to do
203 (179)
Thus, the prologue of the Third Book uncrowns intolerant seriousness and defends the rights of laughter which must prevail even in the most serious historic struggle.
219 (195)
The genres we have examined are relatively primitive; some are even archaic. They have, however, great power of travesty, of debasement, and materialization which render the world more carnal. They are deeply traditional and popular, bringing an atmosphere of freedom, frankness, and familiarity. Therefore Rabelais needed them for stylistic purposes. We have seen their role in the prologues, they helped to create an absolutely gay, frank, and fearless speech that was necessary for the attack undertaken by Rabelais against “Gothic darkness.” These primitive marketplace genres prepared the setting for the popular-festive forms and images of the language in which Rabelais expressed his own new truth about the world. Our next chapter is devoted to this language.
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from nika in prep for meeting:
It is striking how Bakhtin’s ideas are growing more relevant by the day.
Personally, I am looking to explore the relationship between carnivalism, theatricality, and fascism.
Here are some quotes that I find interesting. I will post them in Russian, as I read Bakhtin in Russian. You can use Google Translate—this might even be preferable, as I find that English translations differ significantly from the original. I will also attach some screenshots of the English text for comparison.
Бахтин начинает главу, которую мы будем обсуждать завтра с предложения: “Четырехвековая история понимания, влияния и интерпретации Рабле весьма поучительна: она тесно переплетается с историей самого смеха, его функций и его понимания за тот же период.” и дальше пишет: “Вся народно-пиршественная сторона романа Рабле утратила для XVIII века, с его абстрактно-рациональным утопизмом, весь свой смысл и значение.
Bakhtin begins the chapter we will be discussing tomorrow with the sentence: “The four-century history of the understanding, influence and interpretation of Rabelais is very instructive: it is closely intertwined with the history of laughter itself, its functions and its understanding during the same period.” and further writes: “The entire folk-feast side of Rabelais’s novel lost all its meaning and significance for the 18th century, with its abstract-rational utopianism.В “Храме вкуса” (1732 г.) Вольтер изображает “библиотеку бога”, где “почти все книги исправлены и сокращены рукой муз”. Вольтер помещает в этой библиотеке и произведение Рабле, но оно “сокращено до одной восьмой доли. В романе Рабле Вольтер видит только голую и прямолинейную сатиру, все же остальное для него ненужный балласт.”
In The Temple of Taste (1732), Voltaire depicts “God’s library,” where “almost all the books are corrected and abridged by the hand of the muses.” Voltaire also places Rabelais's work in this library, but it is "reduced to one-eighth. In Rabelais's novel, Voltaire sees only naked and straightforward satire; everything else is unnecessary ballast for him."Мне кажется, самым любопытным сравнение Бахтиным идей романтиков с идеями деятелей просвещения. Бахтин пишет: “В противоположность просветителям романтики создали расширенную концепцию реальности, в которой времени и историческому становлению придавалось существенное значение.
It seems to me that the most interesting thing is Bakhtin’s comparison of the ideas of the romantics with the ideas of educators. Bakhtin writes: “In contrast to the Enlightenment, the Romantics created an expanded concept of reality in which time and historical formation were given essential significance.На основе этой расширенной концепции мира они и в художественном произведении стремились видеть как можно больше – гораздо больше, чем кажется на поверхностный взгляд. Они искали в произведении тенденций будущего, ростков, семян, откровений, пророчеств. … Реальность утрачивает свою статичность, свою натуралистичность и распыленность (сдержанную лишь абстрактно-рационалистической мыслью),
Based on this expanded concept of the world, they also strove to see as much as possible in a work of art - much more than it seems at a superficial glance. They looked for future trends, sprouts, seeds, revelations, prophecies in the work. ... Reality is losing its static nature, its naturalism and dispersion (restrained only by abstract rationalistic thought),в нее начинает входить реальное будущее в форме тенденций, возможностей, предвосхищений. В историческом аспекте реальность получает существенное отношение к свободе, преодолевается узкий и абстрактный детерминизм и механицизм. В области художественного творчества оправдываются отклонения от элементарной действительности, от статики сегодняшнего дня,
it begins to include the real future in the form of trends, possibilities, and anticipations. In the historical aspect, reality receives a significant relationship to freedom, narrow and abstract determinism and mechanism are overcome. In the field of artistic creativity, deviations from elementary reality, from the statics of today, are justified.от документализма, от поверхностной типизации, оправдываются, наконец, гротеск и гротескная фантастика, как формы художественного уловления времени и будущего.”
From documentaryism, from superficial typification, the grotesque and grotesque fantasy are finally justified as forms of artistic capture of time and the future."
to me.. need unjustifiable strategy ness.. sans explaining ness et al.. jain naming the colour law et al
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be you. 