[lit-ideas] Rabelais and His World
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2006 13:10:24 -0700
I ran across something in Bowman's Honor that made me think of Mike, perhaps
as the Best of the Left, that is, one who employs the "comic-type" verbal
compositions referred to in the web-site cited below. Perhaps some of you
have read Bakhtin (who wrote Rabelais and His World, Indiana University
Press, 1984), but I had not.
Page 210: "The distinction between Official and Unofficial cultures was
first made by the Russian literary critic Mikahil Bakhtin (1895-1975), who
saw the Official as consisting of the pieties of religion or upward
allegiances to the ruling classes while the Unofficial consisted of all that
which produced the laughter that was subversive of those pieties and
allegiances. In Rabelais and the other popular writers of the Renaissance
studied by Bakhtin, the Official and Unofficial were in a state of creative
tension with each other. Their relation was 'dialogic,' and neither could
exist entirely apart from the other. The Unofficial Culture then
characteristically took the form of a parody of the Official, as in
Rabelais's Abbey of Theleme, whose monastic rule was 'Do as thou wilt.' The
same kind of relationship existed between the twin poles represented by
Hotspur and Falstaff in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1. Prince Hal has to
make the transition from the Unofficial to the Official Culture in forsaking
the fat knight and taking on the honor-hunger of Hotspur by killing him. In
Shakespeare, there was room for both Official and Unofficial. The two were
kept in balance with each other, though there was ultimately no doubt that
the latter had to be put in its subordinate place, as Prince Hal does
Falstaff when he becomes king."
Bowman refers to the 60s movie The Americanization of Emily, as being an
example of the "Unofficial Culture." Emily, played by Julie Andrews, is
English and believes in the whole Victorian English honor system. She falls
in love with Lt Cmdr Charles E. Madison who tells her that all that British
honor stuff had done the world enormous harm and the only thing that can
save it is Cowardice, which he claims to possess in abundance. "Charlie
Madison ends up a hero in spite of himself and is finally prevailed upon by
his friends to let the illusion of his heroism stand for propaganda
purposes. These friends include his now-compliant sweetheart, the newly
'Americanized' Emily -- for so she is deemed to be on the strength of her
new appreciation of Charlie's cowardice and the assumption that honor and
sacrifice are Old World and British obsessions badly in need of updating by
Britain's American cousins."
Bowman then goes on to show the America tradition of such views in Twain's A
Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and the movie The Man Who Shot
Liberty Valence (1962), Blazing Saddles, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,
Little Big Man, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Silverado, Dances with Wolves,
Unforgiven, and Deadwood.
Bowman drops Bakhtin to move into the Kennedy period and show that the
bright young men of the Kennedy era were very much into Emily's honor; so I
checked into Bakhtin a bit on the internet insofar as this "unofficial
culture" thesis is concerned. He originated the ideas that became Rebalais
and His World as his doctoral dissertation in 1941 but didn't publish it
until after he became famous (1965). See for example the following review
of Bakhtin's book. http://www.english.uga.edu/~amitchel/4830_carnival.htm
No reviewer is mentioned, but I believe her to be Angela Mitchel from the
University of Georgia, but it took a bit of work. She too seems to value
anonymity. I've ordered Bakhtin's book, of course.
Lawrence
Other related posts:
