m of care – nov 28 24
rabelais and his world by mikhail bakhtin reading group – session 2
[https://museum.care/events/reading-group-mikhail-bakhtin-s-book-rabelais-session-2/]:
This is our long-awaited reading group on David Graeber’s favorite Mikhail Bakhtin’s Rabelais and His World.
We will discuss chapter One: Rabelais in the History of Laughter:
on Rabelais: pp. 59-61;
on laughter: pp. 66-73;
on the ‘feast of fools’: pp. 74-75; pp. 78-82;
on parody: pp. 87-95.We have also combined them in one pdf file, please have a look if you need.
These meetings are limited in number. The group is meeting 12 times during 2024/25, on the last Thursday of each month.
just got this day of.. and it’s thanksgiving.. so will do my best to read before.. but..
notes/quotes from meeting (notes/quotes from reading below):
wasn’t able to attend.. hoping for a video
ff
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notes/quotes from reading:
[using given 27 pg pdf rather than book]
chapter One: Rabelais in the History of Laughter:
on Rabelais: pp. 59-61:
59
It would be extremely interesting to write the history of laughter. (A. I. HERZEN)
The four-hundred-year history of the understanding, influence, and interpretation of Rabelais is closely linked with the history of laughter itself.61
these works, which mark the end of the century, bear the seal of Rabelais’ influence; in spite of their differences their imagery is filled with an almost Rabelaisian grotesque life.
Rabelais’ contemporaries saw his work against the background of a living and still powerful tradition. ..They could be interested in the high level of the problems and ideas expresed in the novel’s prandial talks, as well as in the trivia, abuses, indecencies, pedantry, and farce, for they knew that one logic pervaded all these elements which in our eyes appear so different. . In other words, the men of Rabelais’ time grasped the wholeness and order of the Rabelaisian aesthetic and ideological
on laughter: pp. 66-73;
66
characteristically enough the question of ordering life and death is already definitely taken
out of the realm of gay laughter. Like Boccaccio, Rabelais is “worthy of being amusing,” but he does not belong to the number of comforters and advisers who order life and death. .. Rabelais, Cervantes, and Shakespeare represent an important turning point in the history of laughter.The Renaissance conception of laughter can be roughly described as follows: Laughter has a deep philosophical meaning, it is one of the essential forms of the truth concerning the world as a whole, concerning history and man; it is a peculiar point of view relative to the world; the world is seen anew, no less (and perhaps more) profoundly than when seen from the serious stand- point. Therefore, laughter is just as admissible in great literature, posing universal problems, as seriousness. Certain essential as-
pects of the world are accessible only to laughter.67
The attitude toward laughter of the seventeenth century and of the years that followed can be characterized thus. Laughter is not a universal, philosophical form. It can refer only to individual
and individually typical phenomena of social life. That which is important and essential cannot be comical.69
“Menippus, Diogenes advises you, if mortal subjects for laughter begin to pall, come down below, and find much richer material; where you are now, there is always a dash of uncertainty in it; the question will always intrude, who can be quite sure about the hereafter? Here you can have your laugh out in security, like me.”
71
Let us stress once more that for the Renaissance (as for the antique sources described above) the characteristic trait of laughter was precisely the recognition of its positive, regenerating, creative
meaning. This clearly distinguishes it from the later theories of the philosophy of laughter, including Bergson’s conception, which bring out mostly its negative Iunctions.P72
In the Renaissance, laughter in its most radical, universal, and at the same time gay form emerged from the depths of folk culture;.. The culture of folk humor that had been shaped during many centuries and that had defended the people’s creativity in nonofficial forms,..t in verbal expression or spectacle, could now rise to the high level of literature and ideology and fertilize it. Later, in times of absolute monarchy and the formation of a new official order, folk humor descended to the lower level of the genre hierarchy. There it settled and broke away from its popular roots, becoming petty, narrow, and degenerate.In Rabelais we see the speech and mask of the medieval clown, folk and carnival gaiety, the defiance of the democratic cleric, the talk and gestures of the mountebank-all combined with humanist scholarship, with the physician’S science and practice, and with political experience.
73
In this new combination medieval laughter was destined to change. Its wide popular character, its radicalism and freedom, soberness and materiality were transferred from an almost elemental condition to a state of artistic awareness and purposefulness. In other words, medieval laughter became at the Renaissance stage of its development the expression of a new free and critical historical consciousness. . An intolerant, one-sided tone of seriousness is characteristic of official medieval culture.
Cyprian. and John Chrysostom preached against ancient spectacles, especially against the mime and the mime’s jests and laughter. John Chrysostom declared that jests and laughter are not from God but from the devil. Only permanent seriousness, remorse, and sorrow for his sins befit the Christian.
on the ‘feast of fools’: pp. 74-75; pp. 78-82;
74
But this intolerant seriousness of the official church ideology made it necessary to legalize the gaiety, laughter, and jests which had been eliminated from the canonized ritual and etiquette.
The feast of fools showed a particular obstinacy and force of survival in France (fete des fous). This feast was actually a parody and travesty of the official cult, with masquerades and improper dances.
75
gay diversion is necessary “so that foolishness, which is our second nature and seems to be
inherent in man might freely spend itself at least once a year. ..This is why we permit
folly on certain days so that we may later return with greater zeal to the service of God.”In this remarkable apology, foolishness and folly, that is, laughter, are directly described as “man’s second nature” and are opposed to the monolith of the Christian cult and ideology.
78
During the Easter sea- son laughter and jokes were permitted even in church. The priest could tell amusing stories and jokes from the pulpit. Following the days of lenten sadness he could incite his congregation’s gay laughter as a joyous regeneration. This is why it was called “Easter laughter.”
79
Besides “Easter laughter” there was also “Christmas laughter.”This is why the French Noel could later develop into one of the most popular genres of the revolutionary street song.
81
relation of festive laughter to time and to the change of seasons.. to the phases of the
sun and moon, to the death and renewal of vegetationAnother essential element was a reversal of the hierarchic levels:
The custom of electing such ephemeral kings and queens (rois pour rire) was especially widespread in France, where nearly every popular banquet was presided over by them. From the wearing of clothes turned inside out and trousers slipped over the head to the election of mock kings and popes the same topo- graphical logic is put to work: shifting from top to bottom, casting
82
the high and the old, the finished and completed into the material bodily lower stratum for death and rebirth.
Indeed, the ritual of the feast tended to project the play of time itself, which kills and gives birth at the same time, recasting the old into the new, allowing nothing to perpetuate itself..t
huge – find the bravery to change your mind ness et al.. and the it is me ness
Summing up, we can say that laughter, which had been eliminated in the Middle Ages from official cult and ideology, made it unofficial but almost legal nest under the shelter of almost every feast.
The tradition of the antique mime also remained alive. But the main source was local folklore.
Lower- and middle-class clerics, schoolmen, students, and members of corporations were the main participants in these folk merriments. People of various other unorganized elements which belonged to none of these social groups and which were numerous at that time also participated in the celebrations. But the medieval culture of folk humor actually belonged to all the people. The truth of laughter embraced and carried away everyone; nobody could resist it..t
on parody: pp. 87-95.
88
Laughter celebrates its masses, professes its faith, celebrates marriages and funerals, writes its epitaphs, elects kings and bishops.
Next to the universality of medieval laughter we must stress another striking peculiarity: its indissoluble and essential relation to freedom.. t89
We have seen that this laughter was absolutely unofficial but nevertheless legalized.
90
Entertainments in the marketplace were also legalized as well as carnival. Of course, this legalization was
forced, incomplete, led to struggles and new prohibitions.
Besides universalism and freedom, the third important trait of laughter was its relation to the people’s unofficial truth..t
huge
The serious aspects of class culture are official and authoritarian; they are combined with violence, prohibitions, limitations and always contain an element of fear and of intimidation. . It was the victory of laughter over fear that most impressed medieval man. t
91
This truth was ephemeral; it was followed by the fears and oppressions of everyday life, but from these brief moments another unofficial truth emerged, truth about the world and man which prepared the new Renaissance consciousness.
The acute awareness of victory over fear is an essential element of medieval laughter.93
In the Middle Ages, the clown is the lawless herald of the objectively abstract truth. At a time when all life was built within the conventional frameworks of caste, prerogative, scholastic science and hierarchy, truth was localized according to these frameworks;
the clown’s social meaning determined…Veselovsky gives a correct definition of feudal truth. He is also
right to assert that the clown was the herald of another, nonfeudal, nonofficial truth. But this nonofficial truth can hardly be determined as “objectively abstract.” Furthermore, Veselovsky sees the clown as isolated from all the mighty culture of medieval humor. He, therefore, considers laughter an external defensive form of this “objective abstract truth,” a defense of human value in general, which the clown proclaimed using this external form. If there had been no repressions. no stake, truth would have cast off the clown’s attire; it could have spoken in serious tones.94
Laughter is essentially not an external but an interior form of truth; it cannot be transformed into seriousness without destroying and distorting the very contents of the truth which it unveils..t
Laughter liberates not only from external censorship but first of all from the great interior censor; it liberates from the fear that developed in man..t during thousands of years: fear of the sacred, of prohibitions, of the past, of power. ..Laughter opened men’s eyes on that which is new, on the future.
laughter could never become an instrument to oppress and blind the People. It always remained a
free weapon in their hands. As opposed to laughter, medieval seriousness was infused with elements of fear, weakness, humility, submission, falsehood, hypocrisy, or on the other hand with violence, intimidation, threats, prohibitions. As a spokesman of power, seriousness terrorized, demanded, and forbade. It therefore inspired the people with dis- trust. Seriousness had an official tone and was treated like all tis official. It oppressed, frightened, bound, lied, and wore the mask of hypocrisy. Seriousness was avaricious, committed to fasts. When its mask was dropped in the festive square and at the banquet
table, another truth was heard in the form of laughter, foolishness, improprieties, curses, parodies, and travesties. All fears and lies were dispersed in the face of the material bodily festive principle.It would be wrong, however, to presume that medieval seriousness did not impress the people. As long as there was room for fear, medieval man was as yet too weak before the forces of nature and society to resist it.
95
The seriousness of fear and suffering in their religious, social, poli tical, and ideological forms could not
but be impressive. The consciousness of freedom, on the other hand, could be only limited and utopian. It would therefore be a mistake to presume that popular distrust of seriousness and popular love of laughter, as of another truth, could always reach full awareness, expressing a critical and clearly defined opposition itself from fear and weakness. Freedom granted by laughter often enough was mere festive luxury. Thus, distrust of the serious tone and confidence in the truth of laughter had a spontaneous, elemental character. It was understood that fear never lurks behind laughter (which does not build stakes) and that hypocrisy and lies never laugh but wear a serious mask.Laughter created no dogmas and could not become authoritarian; it did not convey fear but a feeling of strength..t It was linked with the procreating act, with birth, renewal, fertility, abundance. Laughter was also related to food and drink and the people’s earthly immortality, and finally it was related to the future of things to come and was to clear the way for them. Seriousness was therefore elementally distrusted, while trust was placed in festive laughter.
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be you. 