The Knight of the Burning Pestle, Francis Beaumont
 
 

3/5/1999

Sir Philip Sidney in The Defence of Poesie (1595) says " comedy is an imitation of the common errors of our life, which [the comic dramatist] representeth in the most ridiculous and scornful sort that may be, so as it is impossible that any beholder can be content to be such a one."    Compare this assertion with the rational role of laughter in satire. Beyond satire itself, consider what Horace says about the role of entertainment in education in poetry and what Burke finds to be the rational  nature of the pleasures we feel in the various passions.
        On the other hand, Bakhtin says that the comedic simply is because life does not finally support the serious claims that we make for life in epic, tragedy and various civic and religious institutions and practises. Therefore comedic forms of entertainment are inevitable and tend to find expression as parodic doubles of serious cultural forms. Moreover, contrary to the high claims made by those such as Sidney,  there is no basic moral purpose to the comedic impulses so construed.  Despite this such comedic and parodic impulses are a necessary and inevitable part of life because they makes life possible.

One way to look at comedy is to locate it on a continuum that runs from satire to parody.

*   Interpret any of our dramas according to any of these varying formulation of comedy, the comedic, the poetic, the passions etc.  Does drama educate or entertain? If both, then to what extent does it do each?  To what extent can we describe any of our works Bakhtinian parody devoid of satiric purposes?

*     If, according to Bakhtin, the comic levels and breaks down hierarchy and distance, does satire in its Renaissance incarnation do the opposite?

*    May we consider Bakthin's theory of  laughter a comic version of psychoanalysis? Is psychoanalysis a tragic version of Bakhtin?

*    Recall the distinction between anarchy  and arche (> matriarchy, patriarchy, monarchy) which connotes  "rule, order, organizing principle,  moral precepts, social, metaphysical and moral forces, etc."   Which side do you place Jonson's  satire on?  (see Jonson question #1 2/14/99)
 

1) In his 2/24 posting to our bulletin board, Aaron wrote:

.The "Ridiculous", for Aristotle, is "a mistake or deformity not productive of pain or harm to others"; it "excites laughter" and is hence characteristic of Comedy(Poetics ch.5). Assuming that tragedies such as RT and JM problematize Aristotle's location of the Ridiculous solely in Comedy, can we distinguish between HOW the Ridiculous stitches itself into Comedy vis-a-vis Tragedy? How is the pleasure elicited by the Ridiculous in Tragedy different from the pleasure elicited by the Ridiculous in Comedy?

Any application of these ideas to KBP or Bakhtin?
 

2) Tricksters, con men, etc.   they must be must be popular because they show up in do many different venues of entertainment from folktales, to drama, mythology, popular culture, carnivals  and circuses.  Is there something intrinsically interesting, entertaining and/ or sensationalistic about such figures? Do we enjoy stories of  deception?  Do we like being deceived?
 

3/1/1999

1) TRICKSTERS—who are they and how do they operate?  How do you account for their function within drama, etc. JM, RT, Alchemist, KBP, Stubbs

a) Are they conveyers of satiric (i.e. normative and hence rational) violence against social deviants?

b) Are they figures who represent the ambivalence of the emotions? Are they  personae who encourage the gratification of anarchic, infantile, primitive or uncivilized impulses while to a greater or lesser extent acting on behalf  of some moral and even satiric agenda? –who render unto the superego what is the superego’s and to the id what is the id’s?

c) Are the figures who in Bakhtinian fashion  celebrate life’s comic exuberance and its inability to be contained in any form  whether moral , literary or even, for that matter,  psychoanalytic? Do they represent a fullness of life beyond the formulations of morality, literary theory or psychoanalysis?

d) Other.

e) Any or all of the above.

f) The more the merrier!.
 

2) PARODY VS. SATIRE.

Pick any of the dramas we’ve read to date. Which is stronger: the parodic or the satiric impulse?

3) KBP--Bacchanalia. Look for bacchanalian references, allusions to festivals such as May Day,  Shrove Tuesday, etc. Any Bakhtinian thoughts thereupon?

4) Comedy may be said to run a continuum that extends from satire to romance.  Note the different levels of romance in KBP,  the difficulties encountered by the young lovers,  the chivalric romance of the KBP himself, etc.  Consider how these difference aspects of romance interact or interfere with each other. How about their relation to the parodic and satiric aspects of the drama?