The Carnivalesque in A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Abstract

Carnival theory did not begin with Bakhtin, and we shall understand Bakhtin’s position more clearly if we set it against classical theories of carnival.1 From the Greek world the most important theoretical statement is to be found in Plato: The gods took pity on the human race, born to suffer as it was, and gave it relief in the form of religious festivals to serve as periods of rest from its labours. They gave us as fellow revellers the Muses, with Apollo their leader, and Dionysus, so that men might restore their way of life by sharing feasts with gods.2 This is first a utopian theory, maintaining that carnival restores human beings to an earlier state of being when humans were closer to the divine. And second, it associates carnival with communal order. Plato argues that festive dancing creates bodily order, and thus bodily and spiritual well-being. He clarifies his orderly view of carnival by dissenting from an alternative view, relating specifically to the worship of Dionysus, which maintains that Hera caused Dionysus to lose his reason, and Dionysus inflicts his revenge upon mortals, making them drunk and wild in their dancing.3 Plato thus dissents from an anarchic view comparable to the later Christian idea that carnival is an expression of the Devil.