For our Reading Diary this week, please read the following prompt, and post at least two comments in the discussion. To enable everyone to respond to one another’s comments, please post your first comment by Wednesday (2/26) at noon, and your second by Friday (2/28) at 5pm.
Before commenting, make sure you read all the previous comments – be a good citizen of the comments section! You can reply directly to this post if you’d like to take the conversation in a new direction, or to someone else’s comment below if you’d like to respond to them. Make sure your comment adds something to the discussion: you’re not evaluating each other’s contributions, you’re adding something that expands the discussion.
Remember that you’ll also start to see this week’s other students’ “Idea” and “Reflection” posts related to their Appetizer presentations. As you’re considering ways to contribute to the class, consider posting your comments on their posts as well! You can find all appetizer-related posts here.
Prompt: We’re beginning a new author (Petronius) and a new text (Satyrica) this week, drawn from a different period (early Roman Empire) and a different culture / language (Rome / Latin) than anything we’ve examined so far. What elements of grotesque realism have you detected in your initial reading? Let’s use this week’s Reading Diary to begin a catalogue: share a specific detail you noticed, or elaborate on how details others have noticed tap into the themes of the grotesque and carnivalesque.
While there were many details of the grotesque presented in the first part of our reading of The Satyricon, the one that stood out most to me was on page 18, where the sexual interactions between Quartilla and Giton are described. “And calling him to her she pressed her lips to his. Then she slipped her hand into his clothes and felt his immature little tool.” Here we can see some pretty explicit sexual implications exemplifying the grotesque.
We didn’t specifically touch on this in class, but I was really uncomfortable with the parts of the brothel that were more explicitly rape or rape-like. Some of it is unclear, but other parts are clearly non-consensual. In 21, the male prostitute’s kisses + other actions are described as “vile, [and] greasy” and then afterwards both Encolpius and Ascyltus promise not to speak of it again (there are a few other times with similar language on the following pages too.) It’s really hard for me to put myself in the mindset of those at the time or try to understand what would have been comedic about this at all (if it was supposed to be is also unclear.) If Romans were uncomfortable with some of the more deviant sexual acts in this section, was that the only part that would have unsettled them, or would rape have too?
From previous experience with other comedies there is a clear idea of rape being something that can ruin a girls life and is traumatizing but is often hushed up. But in this case, where 1. these are men and 2. the whole situation is bizarre, how would Romans have felt?
I’m glad you brought this up, because I was going to write my response on one of the parts that implies rape and how it made me uncomfortable and the tension that it brings to carnival. In section 9, Encolpius is approached and told that Ascyltus told someone that “If you’re playing Lucretia, I’m your Tarquin” (pg 8). This struck me for two reasons. The first is the fact that Ascyltus would use this metaphor as a rape fantasy of sorts, which seems to be a theme that continues into the brothel scene as you mentioned. The second reason was that to my understanding, the rape of Lucretia is one of the most important foundation myths not only because it is the direct catalyst for the disestablishment of the monarchy, but because it sets the ideals for how Roman women should act. I was shocked to see that the myth would be treated in this parodied way, especially since I’m also unsure if the Romans would have laughed or been offended by the allusion.
And I guess that it being a “parody” is a strange way to see it, but the end of the scenario ends with both Encolpius and Ascyltus laughing about it. Even though it is obvious that we are missing some of the exchange, I think that ultimately making light of such a serious event is tense. While this parodying of serious events happens a lot in our society and is written off as “dark humor,” I wonder if it would be considered part of the carnivalesque. Ascyltus was not approaching a woman but a man, and I think I find myself stuck at the same place as you in regards to how it would come across to its contemporary readers.
I agree with the discomfort both of you are bringing up, and I also agree that the parodic element complicates things. I wonder if, as uncomfortable as it is so think about, the forgiveness or ignorance of violence may have something to do with the grotesque in general. I’m thinking about that one character whose name I always forget from Rabelais who brags at length about all the terrible things he’s done to people– I can’t get over how being on the wrong end of that carnivalesque abundance and universality would suck. If we are all one body, we all make decisions about that body, and that can get really messy really quickly if we aren’t, in fact, one body. The way that the characters in this novel seem to get over the sexual violence perpetrated against them does seem to imply that the integration of the body is successful in that there is no lasting injustice, but I don’t think that makes it any less concerning from a modern perspective.
(Sorry that this comes a few minutes late– I completely forgot to click post before Latin!)
I really appreciate these different takes, first that this could just be dismissed as dark humor (even today people will joke about situations like these and only recently are they sometimes told to stop.) That idea honestly helps me to come to terms with the jokes, and I think even though nowadays it doesn’t evoke a sense of the carnival, I think these jokes could have done so at the time.
Also I find it so interesting to think about the grotesque as being “one body” in terms of consent. If we are all unified in some way, connected in an endless cycle of life and death, doing whatever/eating as much as/creating as much excess as we want, it almost makes sense to say you can do whatever you want to others. I think Elinor asked this question once in class, and we decided murder and other violent acts are, in fact, not carnival. But are they grotesque? I’m not sure at all anymore.
My first thought when reading this prompt was about how the Carnivalesque and Grotesque manifest in the relationships among the main three characters Encolpius, Ascyltus, and Giton. In the parts of the text that we have read so far, it seems that there are both examples of and counterexamples to the presence of the Carnivalesque in these characters’ interactions. For example, the sexual nature of Giton’s relationship to Encolpius can be viewed as an element of the Grotesque; on the other hand, however, Encolpius and Ascyltus’ rivalry over Giton suggests a lack of overabundance, or a lack of the prodigality that we tend to associate with the Carnivalesque, because both characters are not able to have what they want. The Carnivalesque can also be seen in the scene when Encolpius and Ascyltus are verbally fighting over Giton in section 9 (page 8), which resembles Billingsgate in the way that the characters (who seem to be friends) insult each other. However, depending on how you interpret the seriousness of this fight, it may be the opposite of Carnivalesque, as the two characters are fighting for power over one another and arguably over the younger Giton. In this way, the relationships among these three characters present arguments both for and against the presence of the Carnivalesque, often within the same scenes.
Right after having watched Fellini’s film Satyricon, I wonder if the carnivalesque and grotesque aspects of Encolpius’s and Ascyltus’s relationship that you identified carry over to the film version. In the text, as you noted, there’s an ambiguity over whether or not the verbal fights between them are serious or not, but I think that Fellini removed any ambiguity and escalated these encounters from billingsgate to straight up hostility. He adds some violent physical fights between the two and removes the comedic tone from the scene where Ascyltus and Encolpius decide to divide up their things and go their separate ways.
When reading Satyrica, I always got the sense that Encolpius and Ascyltus were friends, even if they were arguing. I feel like by removing the billingsgate I feel like Fellini removed a key carnivalesque aspect of Satyrica. In some ways the film seemed to be lacking in the carnivalesque because a lot of the moments that are lighthearted and billingsgate in the book seemed to have high stakes associated with them.
I agree! I was thinking this while watching the movie last night. I thought that the movie emphasized feelings of hostility and discomfort in specific parts that I did not imagine in the original text. Although there were parts of the book that were uncomfortable, there were more of those moments in the film. In class we talked about Habinnas’ arrival, and how that scene had a sense of the carnivalesque to it. However, in the movie, the dinner scene was maddening in an uncontrollable way that was not carnivalesque. To me, there was something disturbing and almost violent about it. Similarly, I think that the movie made use of laughter in a different way than I had imagined. The laughter did not seem to be shared, but more of mockery or degradation. Additionally, the scenes that made use of laughter did not include everyone. Laughter was used to be aimed at someone or something.
This post made me think about how a movie adaptation of the Satyrica could carry over more carnivalesque elements from the book. I feel as though in a movie, it would be harder to have ambiguity about if the fights were from anger or just billingsgate. From people facial expressions and reactions, I imagine we would pretty easily tell which it was. I also imagine a lit of the ambiguity in the book is from it being fragmented. So, I feel like for the movie, it would either have to have scenes that were decidedly carnivalesque or decidedly not, unlike the ambiguity of the book.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I feel the same way with Tramalchio. In the book, there could be arguments either way about the carnivalesque, but in the movie the scene is just loud and uncomfortable. The entire time it is a place I would never want to be. I would be interested to think of a way to preserve some kind of ambiguity while transferring the Satyrica into the new medium.
Something that we briefly touched on during our group discussion was the relationship between women and power. Professor Farmer referenced a passage that highlights the men’s’ underestimation of Quartilla and her associates’ potential:
“But our numbers banished any fears I felt worse of to come. After all, they were three weak
women, if they wanted to try anything; on the other side, we, if nothing else, were of the male
sex, but, in addition, we were certainly less hampered by clothes.” (pg. 15, section 19)
The irony in this statement very quickly becomes evident as the men barely resist the women’s’ advance and they are paralyzed by “the prospect of certain death” (pg. 15, section 19). This inversion of the typical masculine role in ~dangerous~ situations is clear evidence of the carnivalesque interpretation of hierarchies as well as a window into the personalities of these characters.
This post made me think about the inversion of hierarchies in this book. Along with the one you pointed out based on sex, there also seems to be an inversion based on education. Two of our main characters, Encolpius and Ascyltus, are both well educated but still act dumbly. They both get lost and forget where they stay which ends in them being tricked into going to a brothel. They also seem to lose a very important tunic filled with money and barely get it back. On top of this, there is the scene you describe, where Encolpius greatly underestimates the power of the women and ends up fearing for his life.
Based on what I have read later in the book and my vague knowledge of the Satyrica, it seems this inversion goes on. I will be interested to see if there are any others. Specifically, if Encolpius is tricked by any people who should clearly be of a lower education, like a slave or maybe Trimalchio.
Something that came up a lot throughout the reading that relates to the grotesque and carnivalesque is the excessive amount of, and persisting nature of, laughter. In the introduction to Rabelais and His World, Bakhtin writes, “The people’s laughter which characterizes all forms of grotesque realism from immemorial times was linked with the bodily lower stratum. Laughter degrades and materializes” (20). A few lines from Satyrica that reminded me of this were: “The whole place rang with theatrical laughter” (15) and “So our mortifying quarrel collapsed in roars of laughter, and we turned peaceably to other things” (9). The first quote, concerning the theatrical laughter, has a note attached to it, discussing how the Latin phrasing, “mimico risu” refers to something “more pointed than the generic theatrical,” with this scene being a kind of “mime.” This alludes to a certain superficial aspect to this laughter. Bakhtin says that carnivalesque laughter has no footlights, meaning that everyone laughs together. Here, there is not only reference to theatrics, but not everyone is laughing. Rather, our main characters are left alarmed and astonished by this laughter. This contrasts the laughter shared between Encolpius and Asscyltos, which is a laughter that conveys peacemaking. And Bakhtin believes that true carnivalesque laughter is a thing of peace, as well as freedom from fear.
Thank you for investigating that “mimico risu” end note! Like you say, in this instance the laugher of the women produces fear in Encolpius and Ascyltos. I think that in a lot of ways the reader is meant to travel with our two protagonists in equal stupefication from scene to scene. Yes the Satyrica is incomplete and yes Encolpius especially is rather dull, but can you blame them for acting so in such a delirious world? Maybe I still have the Fellini film too impressed on my mind but Encolpius and Ascyltos go through a lot of dangerous and anxious episodes. The laughter of the women at Quartilla’s and the orchestrated pranks at Trimalchio’s seem to indicate that our narrator is walking though one big elaborate joke that he never can be fully let in on. Borrowing from Hannah Gadsby’s comedy special “Nannete,” comedy is manufactured tension followed by its awaited release which is embodied through laughter. But when someone is constantly the butt end of the joke, comedy can’t be healthy. Instead of release, the two are whisked away off to the next place of adventure, without any chance to ground themselves.
One aspect of our first reading from Satyrica that struck me were the allusions to mythical and literary figures through characters’ names. In the brothel scene, one of the characters is named Psyche, a mythological figure who marries Cupid. The more obvious allusion, however, is to Agamemnon, who is a teacher that Encolpius encounters at the beginning of the book. As we talked about in class, later Menelaus is introduced, Agamemnon’s possibly enslaved henchman. Both of these names refer to mythological characters most well known from Homer’s Iliad and the tragedies of Aeschylus. The dynamic Petronius describes between Agamemnon and Menelaus pokes fun at the relationship and power dynamic between the brothers in the Iliad.
This connects to Bakhtin’s concept of the grotesque taking everything that is serious and important and lowering it. Aeschylus’s plays and the epics of Homer certainly would have been extremely well known and would have been held as a standard for literature. Making fun of what is supposed to be sacred and important also ties into the carnivalesque.
One thing I wonder about is whether or not Satyrica fulfills any of the political aims that Bakhtin outlines in the grotesque. Satyrica does parody a lot of Greek literature, and that incorporates the grotesque, but who would have been the audience? Someone would require a certain level of education to be able to read at all and to fully appreciate the parody. Would Satyrica have reached the people who needed laughter and freedom from fear the most?
I think you bring up an interesting point in questioning the accessibility of the comedic effects. To me, it is funny that Menelaus would be a slave to Agamemnon because of the fact that Agamemnon seems to take charge in the Iliad even though they are after Menelaus’ wife; the helplessness of Menelaus to achieve victory alone transcribed as him being a physical slave to Agamemnon is comical. Yet I am also weary to say that this is how people would have seen it, especially if their exposure to the Iliad is a summary and not the actual language and specific plot points that led to my conclusion.
I thought about Psyche in the same way as a figure that was pretty much enslaved to Venus for being with Cupid yet chaste in the instance that she was “married” to Cupid being portrayed as an incredibly sexual being in a brothel. There seems to be this parody and inverse of character for Petronius’ story, but like you said, to understand it would take quite the education in both Greek and Latin literature. I think this also goes back to the question that was posed today in class as to whether or not carnival can exist in an elitist space from which the common people are removed. Even in the context of who read Petronius’ story, we are most likely limited to a very small circle of the Roman elites of Nero’s court. If the story was made for the elite culture, can we even consider it carnivalesque? Perhaps if it is mocking a specific group within this already small group, but I would be interested to examine the possibility more.
The first thing in Satyricon that conveys the carnivalesque atmosphere to me is the detailed description of human sounds and voices. Petronius’s description of sounds does a great job visualizing the scene of a human gathering in Greco-Roman culture. For example, in Part 22 alone, there are four sounds mentioned: greedy quarrels, maid’s screaming, snoring, and the clash of brass. In a mix of sounds, what the audience sees are scenes similar to Bruegel’s paintings: different people act without fear and scruples in the same space. With gender and hierarchical differences neglected, individuals participate in the carnival with their own media and reasons. Although they each carry different purposes and emotions, the sounds they make mix and connect them together and merge them into a whole body. Moreover, Petronius describes laughter in detail. In Part 19, the theatrical laughter frightens Encolpius; however, in Part 20, people are summoned by the laughter of Encolpius. The process of Encolpius changing from the receiver to the spreader of laughter demonstrates how transmission of laughter efficiently assimilates the characters and turns the whole gathering carnivalesque. Like the freedom and fearlessness brought about by laughter in Bakhtin’s article, Petronius’ characters make visible changes in laughter. Compared to Encolpius at the beginning of the book, who confidently talks about rhetoric and oratory in the academy, after he entered the brothel, his knowledgeable and thoughtful disguise is peeled off by laughter; consequently, what has been exposed is his inner carnivalesque desire identical to that of other people in the brothel.
I think that this is a really interesting point because for me at least, it is hard to incorporate sound into my imagining of what is going on when reading the text. Human voices and laughter definitely play a huge role in creating a Carnivalesque atmosphere in Satyricon, especially in the scene at Trimalchio’s dinner when everybody is talking over each other and the slaves are singing. Watching the film really helped me to conceptualize the importance of sound and the voice as an element of the Carnivalesque in Satyricon. There were some scenes in which characters laughed at unexpected or surprising times, like in the brothel or at Trimalchio’s dinner, or when multiple different voices and sounds overlapped. Sound was an essential part of the film to me, and it created a mood that seemed Carnivalesque to the characters while also being unsettling to watch. I think this especially speaks to your last point about visible changes due to laughter, because there were scenes in the film where an unsettling or anxiety-inducing scene is broken by shared laughter among the characters, like after the minotaur scene when Encolpius’ life is spared and everyone cheers and laughs.
Another element of the carnivalesque/grotesque that is represented in this section of the reading is abundance. Trimalchio’s feast described with 12 or more courses (there is a break after this section indicating that there may have been even more) and the amount of slaves working for him point to the limitless and lavish lifestyle that Trimalchio lives. This abundance exceeds just food, looking at a quote on pg. 55. “Then came and interval, after which Trimalchio called for dessert. Slaves removed all the tables and brought in others.” The fact that Trimalchio needs separate tables for his separate courses echos this idea of abundance. He is living a lifestyle too lavish to eat multiple courses on the same table, a true representation of the carnivalesque.
Yes this is true. There seems to be so much food and drink that is in abundance. During the entire feast, which takes up much more than 45 or pages that we read–especially since this is not complete there are lots of parts missing, the characters are eating. There is so much food but Trimalchio keeps ordering that more is brought out that’s more extravagant than the last dish. While watching the film I was able to see how the carnivalesque and grotestque is embodied and displayed throughout the dinner.
I had trouble envisioning a lot of the abundance and excess in the feast in the text itself, but the visuals in the movie definitely helped create more of a Carnivalesque atmosphere in my mind. The sheer number of people, as well as food brought out and spread throughout the physical space of the feast, are definitely much more evident.
One little detail that struck me as potentially carnivalesque is the the times when slaves ask either the main characters or the party in general to beg their master not to beat or kill them and the people they’re asking almost immediately go about asking their master for forgiveness. This occurs a few times in the text and was reflected in a really interesting way in the movie– a slave asks to be pardoned and an entire table of people turn around and say ‘pardon him!’ simultaneously, drawing out how the exchange kind of feels like a script that everyone knows the lines to. Whether or not this is a historical fact about how slave punishment operated in Rome, the insistence of characters on protecting slaves from punishment seems like it simultaneously interrupts and perpetuates the hierarchies that might get disrupted in a carnivalesque atmosphere. On one hand, saving slaves from punishment does make it so the hierarchy doesn’t dominate or enact violence, but, on the other hand, it still assumes the potential of violence.
In the film and the text, the slave who presents the wonderfully massive pig reveals that the chef forgot to cut it. That whole exchange where as you say it seems that everyone at the party knows the script reminded me of gladiatorial fights where a defeated fighter could gain pardon at the whim of the crowd. In this analogy, Trimalchio is the emperor (not necessarilly Nero). Although death was not explicitly threatned, Trimalchio had the chef violently stripped of his clothing. He stood there miserable, yet the crowd pities him. Maybe they were still impressed by the size of the cooked beast in front of them. Or maybe they expected some tasty giblets inside. Or maybe like Fortunata, Trimalchio’s dinner guests play a role of calming his tempoeors and redirecting his attention away from the most vulnerable around him.
Working through my gladiator analogy a bit more, I think it’s important that gladitorial battles were associated with Saturnalia, the biggest carnival in Roman civilization. Select poor people and slave-warriors from the bottom were elevated and centered in the arenas and are made heros. Many died, but they all competed for the chance of manumission and the material support and riches of being a gladiator. But as you suggested in your response, the presence of manumission and relif from the Roman hiearchy in times of Carnival don’t seem to challenge that potential of violence.
This is something that my group talked about in class yesterday, as well as something I find very interesting, which is essentially the discussion of where we draw the line on what is genuinely grotesque and/or carnivalesque, and what only looks like it. I think this is something that has come up in class a lot, and examining “Trimalchio’s Feast” is a good way of continuing this discussion. In my group, we discussed how in chapters 47-56, grotesque and carnivalesque images emerge in terms of pigs and sausages and crownings and uncrownings, however, there is a certain anxiety ingrained into the writing. This whole sequence is entirely unsettling and tense, despite the seemingly carnivalesque atmosphere. The tension exists and persists throughout because of Trimalchio’s desire and need to uphold hierarchy, as well as make the amusement and pleasure of others his to control and possess. I mentioned Hesdin in class (but I don’t think I articulated it very well), and how automata and overall mischief were used to control/manipulate the emotions of others in medieval courtly culture. The scene with the image of the dog reminded me a lot of Hesdin, as the monkey-automata there were used to invoke similar reactions (or at least genuine reactions, as the dog did for Encolpius). It is this manipulation of the emotions of others, the constant need to cause huge, dramatic reactions, that makes me think of Trimalchio’s Feast as a sort of “artificial carnivalesque.” There is a desperation to create a carnivalesque atmosphere that ultimately takes away from the carnivalesque.
In the 15th century, the automata were more present in terms of interacting with guests at Hesdin. They would soak people with water, deceive them with mirrors, etc. The court of Philip III featured decadent banquets, rather similar to Trimalchio’s, where guests might get soaked with water or have other mischief done to them throughout. Because of the rigidity of courtly ritual during the 15th century, it was impossible to object to this treatment during court gatherings. So while these banquets were abundant with food and wine, there was also the looming threat of having your clothes soaked (and if you did not have anything to change into you might be shamed for being poor). Philip was immune to this threat as he controlled every aspect of these events. This reminds me of the rehearsed nature of Trimalchio’s feast, and how, even the “jokes” being played on him have been planned by him. In both of these scenarios, the carnivalesque exists visually, but it is not truly carnivalesque because the overall atmosphere is tense and hierarchy is preserved by an omnipotent host.
I think this comment raises a lot of thought provoking questions. During class, I was also struggling to understand how this dinner at Trimalchio’s could be truly carnivalesque. I noticed a lot of signs that signaled the carnival, but the whole dinner scene just felt incredibly off to me–the scene just read as kind of dangerous, but I couldn’t put my finger on what was unsettling me.
I really like your point that the subversion of the hierarchy was artificial at this point. As (I believe, you) stated in class, Trimalchio seems really insecure. The movie screening highlighted this point to me. More than being an artificial carnival, the movie’s dinner seemed to be parodying the carnival. It’s kind of like multiply by two negatives–by parodying a parody of hierarchy, Trimalchio’s Feast was just steeped in hierarchy.