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January 17, 2018 Premium Content

The Grotesque in Literature Home for Fiction on Patreon

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CRITICISM academia, criticism, Gothic, grotesque, literature 0 Comments

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Note: the following article on the concept of the grotesque in literature is a modified
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excerpt (pp. 47-48) from my doctoral dissertation, “Time is Everything with Him”:
The Concept of the Eternal Now in Nineteenth-Century Gothic, which can be
downloaded (for free) from the repository of the Tampere University Press. For a list
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of my other academic publications, see here.
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What Is The Grotesque In Literature?
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The grotesque in literature can be broadly defined as “a written form of expression
which described that which could not be controlled by reason, was unnatural, and Home for Fiction random
arose in opposition to the classical imitation of ‘beautiful nature’ and the rationalism
and optimism of the Enlightenment” (Perttula 2011, 22).
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However, it is important to underline that the concept of the grotesque underwent

an important shift during the Romantic period, which “highlighted above all the dark,
fearsome, and demonic nature of the grotesque”, though its comical aspect was still Defamiliarization in Literature:
present (Ibid). The merging of what appear to be incongruent elements – comedy Examples and How to Use It
and horror, natural and unnatural, and so on – is precisely where the affective power
of the grotesque lies. As Kayser argues:

Romantic Poets and Jinjer's

The distortion of all ingredients, the fusion of different "Pisces": Meaning, Duality, and
realms, the coexistence of beautiful, bizarre, ghastly, and
the Human Tragedy
repulsive elements, the merger of the parts into a
turbulent whole, the withdrawal into a phantasmagoric and
nocturnal world … all these features have here entered into
the concept of the grotesque. (1981, 79)
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grotesque in literature

A gargoyle in Paris: the

archetypal symbol of the The Sublime in Literature:

grotesque Meaning and Significance

Kayser reaches this conclusion examining the works of Edgar Allan Poe, arguably an
important figure in this post-romantic form of the grotesque, but in terms of Fate and Chance in Mary
evolution in the concept of the grotesque, Victor Hugo’s contribution should be Shelley's Frankenstein
emphasized.

Whereas before him the grotesque was generally seen as something not existing in Recent Posts
nature, Hugo, in his 1827 “Manifesto of the Romantic Movement”, introduced the
Literature in the Audiovisual
idea that the grotesque was a part of natural reality (Perttula 2011, 22). The
Era
presence of something seemingly unnatural underlines the ambiguous placement of
the grotesque between reality and fantasy, an element which is in fact visible also in How NOT to Write Genre

the Bakhtinian grotesque, when its scope is examined more closely. Fiction: The Dangers of
Pleasing Your Audience
The Bakhtinian Grotesque
Reality in Frankenstein:
The examination of the carnival grotesque reveals that Medieval carnival festivities
Dreams and Temporal
were “a second world and a second life” (Bakhtin 1984, 6), which functioned as a
Distortion
parallel, a reflection of the canonical one.
Finding Connections in Writing
Thoughts, expressions, and criticism that could not be voiced in the everyday life, Fiction: Why It Is Important
could be revealed in this medieval version of virtual reality. The ontological status of
the carnival grotesque is ambiguous, being at the fringe between reality and
fantasy.

As such it represents life, although distorted in ways that express hidden meanings.
Other distinctions and separations also disappear, as everyone is at the same time
actor and spectator, writer and reader, with individuality being scorned at and
collectivity being elevated (Ibid, 7).

The Ambiguity Of The Carnival Grotesque

The ambiguity of the carnival grotesque, as well as the undermining of personal
uniqueness in favor of collective expression, can also be seen in the ways the body
is distorted.

As the grotesque body becomes a central theme, its exaggerated appearance

becomes a mechanism that shatters individuality and facilitates totality, as it
expresses “the collective ancestral body of all the people” (Bakhtin 1984, 19). It is
important to notice the temporal element in these manifestations, as the grotesque
body appears as something that not only nullifies space and borders, but also time.
In the concept of the grotesque are hidden multitudes of temporal innuendos, and
especially a sense of historical awareness and a conflict between cyclical time and
linear evolution:

[T]he grotesque, including the Romantic form, discloses

the potentiality of an entirely different world, of another
order, another way of life. It leads men out of the confines
of the apparent (false) unity, of the indisputable and stable
… [T]here is the potentiality of a friendly world, of the
golden age, of carnival truth. Man returns unto himself.
The world is destroyed so that it may be regenerated and
renewed. While dying it gives birth. (Ibid, 48)

The last phrase is particularly noteworthy, as it describes a form of eternal now. Past
and future fuse into a Hegelian “becoming”, which contains both “being” and
“nothing”, since at the indefinably small present moment that something “becomes”,
it passes from nothingness to being.

The Dichotomy Of The Grotesque In Literature

It becomes apparent that a certain dichotomy seems to emerge between the
grotesque expression, on the one hand, and the “real” on the other. However, in
actual fact, the dichotomy only seemingly appears as such. There is no real
distinction, as the grotesque serves as a parallel of the “real”, by amplifying those
expressions of the latter that could not have been manifested otherwise.

As Kayser explicates, the grotesque lies ambiguously in regard to reality as an

expression that is simultaneously both of this world and outside it, with its
ambiguity and its affective power stemming from the realization that “the familiar
and apparently harmonious world is alienated under the impact of abysmal forces,
which break it up and shatter its coherence” (Kayser 1981, 37).

Works Cited
Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Translated by H. Iswolsky. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1984.
Kayser, Wolfgang. The Grotesque in Art and Literature. Translated by Ulrich
Weisstein. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981.
Perttula, Irma. “The Grotesque: Concept and Characteristics”. The Grotesque and
the Unnatural. Edited by Markku Salmela, and Jarkko Toikkanen. Amherst: Cambria
Press, 2011.

Read more: Angelis, Christos. “Time is Everything with Him”: The Concept of
the Eternal Now in Nineteenth-Century Gothic. Doctoral Dissertation. Tampere,
Finland: Tampere University Press, 2017. Available from the repository of the
Tampere University Press.

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