The Grotesque as a Critical Concept – A Question of Cultural Values

Abstract

In a single chapter on Die Blechtrommel W.G. Cunliffe l uses the word `grotesque' on more than eighteen separate occasions. What he means by the term, however, is far from clear. It is applied to characters, situations, symbols, and even to the title of a chapter. The range of meaning seems limited only by the bounds of the author's ingenuity. Nor is Cunliffe the only literary critic to fling the term about in wild abandon. In contemporary literary criticism `grotesque' has been used as a synonym for ugly, repulsive, abnormal, distorted, perverted, horrific, puzzling, bizarre, Gothic, blasphemous, obscene, and insane; in short it has been used to describe any negative aspects of literature, while the pejorative connotations frequently imply moral or aesthetic judgments on the part of the critic. An etymological study of the word, such as that of Barasch 2 or Clayborough, 3 traces its origins to the sixteenth century, where it was first used to describe the murals found in the 'grotte' in Rome. These were characterized by the intermingling of plant, animal, human, and architectural forms, and this style of art was described as `grottesco.' From the comments of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio it is clear that it is not only the combination of heterogeneous forms which is considered grotesque, nor the violation of classical mimetic principles, but the confusion of functions: `For how can the stem of a flower support a roof, or a candelabrum bear pedimental sculpture? How can a tender shoot carry a human figure, and how can bastard forms composed of flowers and human bodies grow out of roots and tendrils?'4