This is my video, definitely improvements to be made 🙂
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3 thoughts on “Food, Banquets, and Triumph”
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Bawdy Bodies
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One of the points you made that struck me the most was when you discussed how Bakhtin explains abundance and harvest/eating as a triumph over the earth, and it reminded me of some small moments throughout the Pantagruel text where Pantagruel directly influences the landscape of Paris (i.e. when he throws rocks and things around and Rabelais points out that they are contemporary monuments)! In saying that people have to triumph over the earth, Bakhtin seems to imply that the earth and/or the natural world is more powerful than we are; and as you pointed out, Pantagruel seems to (at minimum) overwhelm nature by his ridiculous desire for abundance. To think of food and banqueting as a way we can stick it to the earth is incredibly interesting as well as slightly concerning, but I think that the lack of time that Bakhtin gives to our relation to the natural world in exchange for commentary our own social constructions is odd. Regardless of Bakhtin’s problems, you brought out really good examples of how Rabelais’ characters interact with earth by the ways in which they consume it!
This is a really wonderful exploration of food and abundance in Pantagruel and as a Carnivalesque concept in general! To me abundance in all of its forms is one of the overall most common Carnivalesque images in Rabelais, and feasts and banquets are a huge part of showing this abundance. I especially found a lot of the Rabelais quotes that you used really compelling, like the one where Pantagruel’s mother requests “caravans” of food. This language creates really specific imagery, and the reader can clearly understand just how abundant the food is when it is all listed out like that, or when Rabelais uses specific numbers to describe how much of each kind of food there is. There is definitely something triumphant about the characters sitting in front of a huge banquet of food and knowing that they can eat as much of it as they want because they put the work into getting it. Also, I loved your illustrations!!
I really liked this video. I think that abundance in food are maybe the most important part of the Carnivalesque but can somewhat easily be skipped over. I also think my understanding of the Carnivalesque and group eating has changed this quarter quite a bit, and I was a little emotional when you talked about feasts and the Carnival. I like how you pointed out that in Rabelais, it isn’t just about eating or overeating but about the imagery used throughout. I think this is a really important factor in what makes something Carnivalesque.