Carnival Spirit Research Articles

Copyright Heritage: Preservation, Carnival and the State in Trinidad

This essay addresses the place of Carnival in the creation of a national cultural narrative in Trinidad and Tobago and examines the role that such a narrative plays in the formation of a coherent national cultural identity. The paper is organized in two parts: The first section looks at the process of cultural heritage preservation in relation to the Trinidad Carnival. The second looks at the effects of preservation on middle class women who participate in Carnival. Positioning the Carnival as a central expressive form in a cultural identity that transcends ethnic, class or gender divisions has long been part of the nationalist agenda in Trinidad. Recently, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago has pursued the possibility of copyrighting certain aspects of the festival to prevent their theft, degradation or misappropriation by both locals and foreigners. This paper describes how a "sit-down" protest during the Carnival by one of Trinidad's most popular masquerade groups set off a discussion about the true spirit of Carnival. The ensuing debate highlighted the narrative about Carnival and its history that is most valued by the state and demonstrated the ways in which acts of preservation and protection of heritage serve to exclude significant portions of the population, most notably women. Finally, the paper shows how certain parties control the formation of heritage and culture, and seek global endorsement for their brokerage of national cultural identity. [Trinidad, Carnival, nationalism, heritage, copyright, intellectual property, gender].

Canadian Feminist Writing and American Poetry

In her article, "Canadian Feminist Writing and American Poetry," Eugenia Sojka explores contemporary English-Canadian feminist avant-garde and language-focused writing and its intertextual linkages with American Language Poets. Texts of English-Canadian feminist writers such as Lola Lemire Tostevin, Daphne Marlatt, Betsy Warland, Erin Mouré, and Gail Scott are read with reference to ideas and hniques inscribed in the writing of Ron Silliman, Charles Berstein, Susan Howe, Lyn Hejinian, and Carla Harryman. Sojka focuses first on the socio-historical dimension of the writing and proceeds to the exploration of several discourses inscribed in the texts of writers associated with both groups. Their texts return to the politics and aesthetics of the historical avant-garde and reincarnate the spirit of carnival. They re-read earlier female avant-gardes, carnivalize monologic concepts of language and writing, experiment with the "new sentence" and interartistic projects, and carnivalize the traditional concept of the genre. While Canadian writers engage in the re-reading of American feminist avant-garde, their focus is on the Canadian socio-historical and political situation. What distinguishes Canadian language writing from other international avant-gardes is their intertextual dialogue with Québécois-Canadian feminist writers and the intense work on language closely linked with the complex and problematic nature of Canadian identity in a post-national and globalized world.

The Spirit of Carnival: Magical Realism and the Grotesque (review)

The Spirit of Carnival: Magical Realism and the Grotesque (review)

'Mock Not': The Problem of Laughter in Richard II

Richard II's fall from power in Shakespeare's play has been attributed to many causes: the weakness ofthe king's 'poetic' temperament; the strength of his un-poetic determination to 'affirm a policy of royal absolutism'; his un-Christian willingness to allow a trial by combat; his failure to allow the trial by combat to proceed; his excessive leniency to both friends and enemies; his complicity in his uncle's murder. Most recently, his fate has been ascribed to the effect of a pervasive 'carnival spirit' that shapes the world of this play and the plays that follow it. Richard, according to David Bergeron's 'Richard II and Carnival Politics,' is a 'mock king' who, governed by the rules of carnival games, must inevitably be thrust down, belittled, and cast out to make place for another: 'history and the play's carnival spirit ... displace him, subvert and substitute him. There is, of course, no actual carnival in the play, but Bergeron argues that Shakespeare 'uses language and ideas associated with carnival as a means of exploring the topsy-turvy world of this play,' with the result that 'carnival is not marginal but preeminent in the play as metaphor and reality.' In the spirit of popular festivity Bolingbroke too will 'have his day to "monarchize," but will eventually be subsumed in the carnival process that dethrones every king, every power. '[C]arnival pulls down, if only for a moment, established order, whether government or church.'

The spirit of carnival: magical realism and the grotesque

The world of literature responds to the of in ways that are both social and cultural, mythological and archetypal. Literature provides a mirror in which carnival is reflected and refracted through the multifarious perspectives of verbal art. In his original, wide-ranging book, David K. Danow catches the various reflections in that mirror, from the bright, life-affirming magical side of carnival, as revealed in the literature of Latin American writers, to its dark, grotesque, death-embracing aspect as illustrated in numerous novels depicting the dire experience of the Second World War.The remarkable meshing of these two diametrically opposed yet inextricably intertwined facets of literature (and of life) makes for an intriguing sphere of investigation, for the carnival spirit is animated by a human need to dissolve borders and eliminate boundaries -- including, symbolically, those between life and death -- in an ongoing effort to merge opposing forces into new configurations of truth and meaning.Expanding upon the seminal ideas of Mikhail Bakhtin, carnival, argues Danow, is designed to allow one extreme to flow into another, to provide for one polarity (official culture) to confront its opposite (unofficial culture), much as individuals engage in In this case the result is dialogized or carnivalized dialogue. In their artmaking, Danow claims, human beings are animated by a periodic predisposition toward the bright side of carnival, matched by an equally strong, far darker predilection. Carnival forms of thinking are firmly embedded within the human psyche as archetypal patterns.In this engaging exploratory book, we are shown the distinctive imprint of these primordial structures within a multitude of seemingly disparate literary works.

Chaucer, Gower, and the Unknown Minstrel: The Literary Liberation of the Loathly Lady

Vasta submits the three best-known ME versions of the story — Gower's tale of Florent, Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Tale, and Weddynge of Sir Gawen and — to an analysis in terms of Bakhtin's notions of the confrontational and liberating powers of the grotesque and the carnivalesque. By the standards that these terms imply, Gower's and to a lesser degree Chaucer's versions both fall short. By the time of the three English romances, the loathly lady had already been severely marginalized from her earlier status as part of the official culture. her Greek and Celtic counterparts, she bears no sovereignty of her own, but must win a male-bestowed sovereignty in order to regain her place in the culture from which she has been excluded. The renewal she offers, moreover, is merely personal rather than natural or cultural. In this last respect, however, the implications of individual renewal progressively widen in the three ME versions, finally reaching something like the cultural renewal of her earlier manifestations in Dame Ragnell. The means for both her confrontation with official culture and the renewal that she gives is provided by grotesquerie and laughter, which turns the usual, officially dominated world upside down and inside out. Gower's tale of Florent would seem to have least patience with the notion of the humorlessly employing the loathly lady in service of a straightforward moral on obedience and patience that is endorsed by and sustains the official culture. The aura of official culture and is maintained in the tale by the heavy emphasis on contracts and legal obligation. In the conclusion to the tale, Florent's circumstances are improved, but there is no transformation in his character, much less in the society in which he moves, since all takes place in private. The loathliness of the hag, moreover, itself has no or redemptive function, but is merely the effect of her stepmother's antipathy. Chaucer's is equally conventional and equally supportive of the ruling culture status quo, and it is placed even more obviously in the center of the tale, in the loathly lady's address to her new husband. The husband in Chaucer's version, however, faced with a more complex choice than in Gower's, is enlightened to an anti-official ideology in his active recognition of the woman's sovereignty. Assigning the tale to WB gives universality to the loathly lady's claims, but WB's own claim to authority is restricted and contained by the humor with which Chaucer treats her for her deviation from official cultural standards. In neither Gower's nor Chaucer's tale is official culture transformed to incorporate the previously marginalized individual. Such liberation and renewal do occur in Weddynge of Sir Gawen and Ragnell. In this poem, which Vasta labels a carnivalesque romance, the loathly lady much more clearly matches Bakhtin's definition of the grotesque, both in appearance and in function; and in her cheerful and fearless lack of regard for convention and social restraint, she offers the perfect example of Bakhtin's carnival spirit. The laughter in the tale, moreover, is equally at the expense of the lady herself and the seriousness with which the official culture of the court attempts to maintain its dignity. With the removal of the mask of her loathliness and Gawain's surrender of authority and freedom, the entire court is transformed: the previously sober Gawain become less respective of convention, Ragnell fills the previously gloomy court with play, and she reconciles Arthur with her brother Gromer. The romance ends with the narrator's prayer for his own release from prison, in which he repeatedly draws upon the language of rebirth, in both respects echoing the redemptive structure of the poem as a whole. Unlike Chaucer and Gower, who show the power of the official culture confronting wrongdoers, this romancer shows the official culture's power as the wrongdoer, and the victims of the wrongful power as not only correcting the court but as renewing and perpetuating it. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 15.1]

La lengua del gracioso y el mundo del carnaval en El desdén, con el desdén de Moreto

The essay studies the language of the gracioso Polilla as representative of the culture of carnival in this work. Besides the fact that the play revolves around the famous carnival of Barcelona, the presence of Polilla in the play contributes to deflating the haughtiness of Princess Diana with a type of language unmistakably associated with the culture of carnival. My paper explores the use of carnivalesque imagery in three areas, related to food ingestion, disease, and games of chance ( juegos de azar ). Since most of these point to concealed sexual or scatological double entendres, the paper ultimately underlines the strong but hidden erotic content that pervades the whole play, and, by placing Moreto's play in the context of the Spain of the Hapsburgs, considers to what extent Polilla's language can be considered subversive and genuinely akin to the spirit of carnival. (JLC)

On the Home Front: Melbourne in Wartime 1939-1945

This engaging book is an essential insight into how the Second World War transformed daily life in Australia .Kate Darian-Smith s imaginative research and her wonderful eye for the detail animate every page. Michael Cathcart What really happened on the Australian home front during the Second World War? For the people of Melbourne these were years of social dislocation and increased government interference in all aspects of daily life. On the Home Front is the story of their work, leisure, relationships and their fears-for by 1942 the city was pitted with air raid trenches, and in the half-light of the brownout Melburnians awaited a Japanese invasion. As women left the home to replace men in factories and offices, the traditional roles of mothers and wives were challenged. The presence of thousands of American soldiers in Melbourne raised new questions about Australian nationalism and identity, and the carnival spirit of many on the home front created anxiety about the issues of drunkenness, gambling and sexuality. Kate Darian-Smith's classic and evocative study of Melbourne in wartime draws upon the memories of men and women who lived through those turbulent years when society grappled with the tensions between a restrictive government and new opportunities for social and sexual freedoms.

Essays on Comedy and the Gracioso in Plays by Agustín Moreto (review)

REVIEWS Exum, Frances, ed. Essays on Comedy and the Gracioso in Plays by Agustín Moreto. York, South Carolina: Spanish Literature Publishing Company, 1986. Pp. 68. Much of the reputation of Agustín Moreto rests on his talents as a comic writer. Unfortunately, this position is not strongly supported by critical works that reveal this aspect of his work. Indeed, a quick perusal of the bibliography contained in the book indicates how little attention has been paid to it. The publication of these essays within one cover, seven of which have appeared before in easily obtainable journals, may serve a useful purpose. Collections of articles that deal with a single subject help to focus the attention of their readers on that particular issue and may encourage others to undertake further studies, by rendering patent how much still needs to be done. Considering the fact that comedy , because it is inherently difficult to analyze, is often ignored, the effort has merit in spite of the evident duplication. The book is set within a framework of essays by Bruce Wardropper, whose 1957 article on the secularization of the comedia serves as the lead piece. The other essays, four of which are by Prof. Exum herself, are the products of seminars directed by Prof. Wardropper under the patronage of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Prof. Wardropper, it will be remembered, suggested that El desdén con el desdén is the first Golden Age play in which the psychological problems raised by it are "divorced from theological preoccupations " and it is this secularization which, coinciding with the ideas of the period, constitutes an advance, but not necessarily an improvement, on the art of the comedia. In her essay, "Moreto's Pollila and the Spirit of Carnival," Janet B. Norden studies the figure of the gracioso in his role as manipulator of the action who, operating within the spirit of Carnival, achieves the union of sensual love with Christian values and brings about, thereby, an affirmation of life. Ann Fountain in "Venereal Disease and the Gracioso" uncovers not only Polilla's preoccupation with syphilis but also discusses the connection of the 155 156BCom, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Summer 1989) disease with the names Polilla-Canaqui by which the servant is variously known. She suggests a possible metaphorical relation between Carlos and Apollo and, therefore, a connection between the gracioso and the shepherd Syphilis, in Fracastor's poem, who had been punished with the dreaded disease for daring to insult the Sun god. In the first of her four essays Prof. Exum discusses the role of four graciosos as directors of the action, paying particular attention to their disguises and roleplaying . In this function, they are not only directors of minidramas but also commentators on the actions of others. By establishing a special relation between the audience and themselves, they make it possible for the spectators to participate actively in the development of the plays. In the other essays, Prof. Exum denies the centrality of the image of the breva for the theme of El desdén con el desdén, uncovers the resemblance of the structure of Yo por vos, y vos por otro to a dance, the quadrille, and discusses the parodie intent of role-reversal in De fuera vendrá. In the epilogue to the book, Bruce Wardropper reviews the question of secularization of the comedia by Moreto and, while taking graciously the criticism by Francisco Rico, insists on his earlier formulation, with the modification that it is the spirit of Carnival that determines the nature of the play. Frank P. Casa University of Michigan Lope de Rueda. The Interludes (Los Pasos). Randall W. Listerman, translator. Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, 1988. Paper. 118 pp. This is the first English translation of the complete Pasos of Lope de Rueda—the seven published in El Deleitoso (1567), and the other six contained in the Registro de representantes (1570) . Rueda's Pasos depend almost entirely on verbal humor, which is notoriously one of the hardest things to translate. As if this were not enough to discourage any potential translator, the Pasos are written in a fast-paced, telegraphic slang, replete with archaic regionalisms and colloquialisms , many...

The Interludes (Los Pasos) (review)

156BCom, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Summer 1989) disease with the names Polilla-Canaqui by which the servant is variously known. She suggests a possible metaphorical relation between Carlos and Apollo and, therefore, a connection between the gracioso and the shepherd Syphilis, in Fracastor's poem, who had been punished with the dreaded disease for daring to insult the Sun god. In the first of her four essays Prof. Exum discusses the role of four graciosos as directors of the action, paying particular attention to their disguises and roleplaying . In this function, they are not only directors of minidramas but also commentators on the actions of others. By establishing a special relation between the audience and themselves, they make it possible for the spectators to participate actively in the development of the plays. In the other essays, Prof. Exum denies the centrality of the image of the breva for the theme of El desdén con el desdén, uncovers the resemblance of the structure of Yo por vos, y vos por otro to a dance, the quadrille, and discusses the parodie intent of role-reversal in De fuera vendrá. In the epilogue to the book, Bruce Wardropper reviews the question of secularization of the comedia by Moreto and, while taking graciously the criticism by Francisco Rico, insists on his earlier formulation, with the modification that it is the spirit of Carnival that determines the nature of the play. Frank P. Casa University of Michigan Lope de Rueda. The Interludes (Los Pasos). Randall W. Listerman, translator. Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, 1988. Paper. 118 pp. This is the first English translation of the complete Pasos of Lope de Rueda—the seven published in El Deleitoso (1567), and the other six contained in the Registro de representantes (1570) . Rueda's Pasos depend almost entirely on verbal humor, which is notoriously one of the hardest things to translate. As if this were not enough to discourage any potential translator, the Pasos are written in a fast-paced, telegraphic slang, replete with archaic regionalisms and colloquialisms , many of which scholars have not yet succeeded in elucidating satisfactorily. Randall Listerman has risen to the challenge admirably, recreating in twentieth-century "street language" a surprisingly close equivalent to Rueda's racy sixteenth-century dialogue and managing to make the modern version just as witty and entertaining as the original. A literally exact translation of the Pasos would of course have resulted in unperformable, barbarous English. Listerman has instead paraphrased the Spanish, maintaining the original tone as closely as Reviews157 possible. A good example is Martin's speech to the doctor in the second Paso, popularly known by Moratin's title "Cornudo y contento": "I couldn't move. I felt like death warmed over and still gotta pain right here in the gut. I've felt terrible all day. Just awhile ago, cousin came in and said 'Holy Toledo you look like the purge itself!' " ["...que como no me podía menear del dolor quen estos hijares sentía, díxome su primo: andad mal punto, que sois hombre sin coracón: de una negra purguilla estáis que no parescéis sino buho serenado."] (p. 48). There is something delightfully zany about having a sixteenth-century Spaniard use the expression "Holy Toledo." I often got the feeling while reading this translation that these were just the words Lope de Rueda would have chosen if he were writing the Pasos today; and surely that is as good a test of a translation as any. The brief introduction adds nothing new to our knowledge of Lope de Rueda's life or understanding of his work, but it will enable the non-specialized reader to place Rueda in the context of the early history of Spanish theater. This book could have been greatly improved by more careful editing. The punctuation (or lack of it) is arbitrary and eccentric. Listerman seems to have followed the rule: when in doubt, don't punctuate. This is annoying and sometimes leads to minor confusion. For example, the phrase "Oh dear Alameda" could mean "Oh, dear Alameda" or "Oh dear, Alameda," (p. 42) and there are literally dozens of other similar cases. Listerman has chosen to...

Harlequinade: Commedia dell'Arte on the Early Twentieth-Century British Stage

The theatre, where commedia had been born, also rediscovered these potent images, as well as the improvisatory and movement-oriented performance techniques of commedia, and they had a stunning impact on a diverse collection of playwrights, directors, and actors in many cultures. Most of these artists were seeking alternatives to the tidal wave of realism and naturalism sweeping the early twentieth-century theatre. On the Russian stage, the symbolist productions of Meyerhold and Tairov and the plays of Blok and Evreinov exploded with the spirit of commedia, clowns, and carnival, transformed into cynical, ironic, and highly political statements on the human soul and contemporary life. In Germany and Austria, Reinhardt staged the plays of Shakespeare, Moliere, and Goldoni with an antiquarian's love of commedia. Frenchman Jacques Copeau and his les Copiaus shook the dust from traditional treatments of Moliere's farces with commedic acting techniques; Luigi Pirandello rebuilt the Italian theatre with his complex dramas, inspired in large measure by the remnants of commedia; and, in emerging theatrical cultures, the echoes of the commedia could be heard and felt everywhere.

Moreto's Polilla and the Spirit of Carnival

Moreto's Polilla and the Spirit of Carnival

Georges Feydeau and the Aesthetics of Farce by Stuart E. Baker (review)

394 Book Reviews Underlying such bourgeois laughter is a sense of justice societal in its scope and, therefore, essentially different from that infonning the absolute comic with its cosmic dimension of the carnival spirit and its "scapegoats" conceived as sinners against Nature, We simply have to realize that the term "farce" has undergone radical formal and semantic changes, and Pronko is keenly aware of the emphasis placed by Labiche and Feydeau on theatricality, speed, gaiety, absurdity. and the colorful language employed by these playwrights. He speaks of Labiche's development of the chase, played at a devilish pace in Un Chapeau de paille d' Italie, a pace that in Rene Clair's acclaimed film version of the play became a vaudeville-cauchemar, and that inspired many of Feydeau's comedies. "Like Labiche," Pronko tells us, "Peydeau understood that 'movement is the essential condition of theater. ,,, But Peydeau also understood the comic effect of physical handicaps: a stutter, a limp, a shrug. He was a brilliant stage director. capable of manipulating precisely the large number of characters he introduced into several of his plays. He indicated in "impressive detail the decor, props, movement of the actors, and even on occasion the exact tone or intonation of a phrase," sometimes writing out musical notations for certain passages or words, and giving infinite care to timing. Yet the growing acclaim awarded these playwrights is proof that their version of farce recaptured the dance of life in all of its vitality, even though it restricted itselfto the realm of the bourgeois, unconcerned with laws of Nature and camivalesque justice. EDITH KERN, THE NEW SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL RESEARCH STUART E. BAKER. Georges Feydeau and the Aesthetics ofFarce. Ann Arbor, ML UMI Research Press 1981. Pp. xi, 163. $39.95. Years ago, when I decided to write a dissertation on the theater of Georges Feydeau, all my fellow graduate students (and nota few afmy professors) had to ask me who he was. That would not happen today. He has, over the years, earned his place as the master of French farce, second only to Moliere, in the judgment of many, as a French comic playwright. His name has become synonymous with intricately crafted imbroglios leavened with the wittiest of dialogue and not a little social commentary. Along with this posthumous popUlarity has come a spate of learned articles, monographs and books, in France and abroad, devoted to Feydeau's life and theater. The Boulevard entertainer has made it into Academe (much though that might have surprised and amused him). And rightly so. Any playwright who knows the secret of doubling up his audiences with relentless laughter deserves to have his technique analyzed - for cerebral, if not visceral satisfaction - even if (truistically) any analysis, however probing, pales before the plays themselves. ] tend to look askance at works that purport to tell me why I laugh. They speak to the head, while laughter - at least the belly laugh of farce - is, ipso facto, a product of the gut. Still, it is worth a try, even if one wonders whether, like the beauty of the butterfly's wing, the laughter of comedy (and especially of farce) can really be analyzed at all. Although the almost geometrical construction of Feydeau's masterpieces has been recognized and admired for generations, it is only recently that it has been systematical1y studied. One of the worthy attempts at dramatic anatomy is Stuart E. Baker's Georges Book Reviews 395 Feydeau and the Aesthetics of Farce. A revised doctoral thesis (1976), it is a straightforward, informed and informative introduction to the theater of the eminent farceur, written in an appropriately scholarly manner, but not stuffily so. Baker leads the reader very convincingly through observations on the aesthetics offarce, in general, and the elements ofFeydeau's plots, structures, and characterizations, in particular. Without revealing startling new insights. he pulls together and develops notions that othercritics, here and abroad, have voiced in varying degrees: the stages of Feydeau's career, the systematic madness and special brand of fantasy that pervade his theater. the "absurd" in his farces, the power of objects to victimize his heroes (or antiheroes), etc. He does so, for the most part, with...

A Wax Miniature of Joseph Boruwlaski

Previous articleNext article No AccessA Wax Miniature of Joseph BoruwlaskiPriscilla GracePriscilla Grace Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Metropolitan Museum Journal Volume 151980 Sponsored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/1512759 Copyright 1981 The Metropolitan Museum of ArtPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.