The genre of Menippean satire is a form of

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming o ...

, usually in

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the fo ...

, that is characterized by attacking mental attitudes rather than specific individuals or entities. It has been broadly described as a mixture of

allegory As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a hidden meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory t ...

picaresque The picaresque novel ( Spanish: ''picaresca'', from ''pícaro'', for "rogue" or "rascal") is a genre of prose fiction. It depicts the adventures of a roguish, but "appealing hero", usually of low social class, who lives by his wits in a corru ...

narrative, and satirical commentary.Paul Salzman, ''Narrative Contexts for Bacon's New Atlantis'', p. 39, in Bronwen Price (editor), ''Francis Bacon's New Atlantis'' (2002) Other features found in Menippean satire are different forms of

parody A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its sub ...

and mythological

burlesque A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects.

, a critique of the myths inherited from traditional culture, a rhapsodic nature, a fragmented narrative, the combination of many different targets, and the rapid moving between styles and points of view. The term is used by classical grammarians and by philologists mostly to refer to satires in prose (cf. the verse

Satires of Juvenal The ''Satires'' () are a collection of satirical poems by the Latin author Juvenal written between the end of the first and the early second centuries A.D. Juvenal is credited with sixteen known poems divided among five books; all are in the ...

and his imitators). Social types attacked and ridiculed by Menippean satires include "pedants, bigots, cranks,

parvenu A ''parvenu'' is a person who is a relative newcomer to a high-ranking socioeconomic class. The word is borrowed from the French language; it is the past participle of the verb ''parvenir'' (to reach, to arrive, to manage to do something). Origi ...

s, virtuosi, enthusiasts, rapacious and incompetent professional men of all kinds," although they are addressed in terms of "their occupational approach to life as distinct from their social behavior ... as mouthpieces of the idea they represent".Frye, Fourth essay, section
Specific Continuous Forms (Prose Fiction)
'Theodore D. Kharpertian, ''Thomas Pynchon and Postmodern American Satire'' pp. 29–30, in Kharpertia
''A hand to turn the time: the Menippean satires of Thomas Pynchon''
/ref> Characterization in Menippean satire is more stylized than naturalistic, and presents people as an embodiment of the ideas they represent. The term ''Menippean satire'' distinguishes it from the earlier satire pioneered by

Aristophanes Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme Kydathenaion ( la, Cydathenaeum), was a comic playwright or comedy-writer of ancient Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy. Eleven of his ...

, which was based on personal attacks.

Origins

The form is named after the third century BC Greek cynic parodist and polemicist

Menippus Menippus of Gadara (; el, Μένιππος ὁ Γαδαρεύς ''Menippos ho Gadareus''; fl. 3rd century BC) was a Cynic satirist. The Menippean satire genre is named after him. His works, all of which are lost, were an important influence ...

.Branham (1997
p.17
/ref> His works, now lost, influenced the works of

Lucian Lucian of Samosata, '; la, Lucianus Samosatensis ( 125 – after 180) was a Hellenized Syrian satirist, rhetorician and pamphleteer who is best known for his characteristic tongue-in-cheek style, with which he frequently ridiculed supersti ...

and

Marcus Terentius Varro Marcus Terentius Varro (; 116–27 BC) was a Roman polymath and a prolific author. He is regarded as ancient Rome's greatest scholar, and was described by Petrarch as "the third great light of Rome" (after Vergil and Cicero). He is sometimes calle ...

, the latter being the first to identify the genre by referring to his own satires as ''saturae menippeae''; such satires are sometimes also termed Varronian satire. According to

Mikhail Bakhtin Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin ( ; rus, Михаи́л Миха́йлович Бахти́н, , mʲɪxɐˈil mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ bɐxˈtʲin; – 7 March 1975) was a Russian philosopher, literary critic and scholar who worked on literary theor ...

, the genre itself was in existence prior even to Menippus, with authors such as

Antisthenes Antisthenes (; el, Ἀντισθένης; 446 366 BCE) was a Greek philosopher and a pupil of Socrates. Antisthenes first learned rhetoric under Gorgias before becoming an ardent disciple of Socrates. He adopted and developed the ethical side ...

Heraclides Ponticus Heraclides Ponticus ( grc-gre, Ἡρακλείδης ὁ Ποντικός ''Herakleides''; c. 390 BC – c. 310 BC) was a Greek philosopher and astronomer who was born in Heraclea Pontica, now Karadeniz Ereğli, Turkey, and migrated to Athens. ...

and

Bion of Borysthenes Bion of Borysthenes ( el, Βίων Βορυσθενίτης, ''gen''.: Βίωνος; BC) was a Greek philosopher. After being sold into slavery, and then released, he moved to Athens, where he studied in almost every school of philosophy. I ...

Classical tradition

Varro's own 150 books of Menippean satires survive only through quotations. The genre continued with

Seneca the Younger Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger (; 65 AD), usually known mononymously as Seneca, was a Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman, dramatist, and, in one work, satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature. Seneca was born ...

, whose '' Apocolocyntosis'', or "Pumpkinification", is the only near-complete classical Menippean satire to survive. It consisted in an irreverent

of the deification of Emperor Claudius. The Menippean tradition is also evident in

Petronius Gaius Petronius Arbiter"Gaius Petronius Arbiter"
Satyricon The ''Satyricon'', ''Satyricon'' ''liber'' (''The Book of Satyrlike Adventures''), or ''Satyrica'', is a Latin work of fiction believed to have been written by Gaius Petronius, though the manuscript tradition identifies the author as Titus Petr ...

'', especially in the banquet scene "Cena Trimalchionis", which combines epic form, tragedy, and philosophy with verse and prose. Both ''Satyricon'' and

Apuleius Apuleius (; also called Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis; c. 124 – after 170) was a Numidian Latin-language prose writer, Platonist philosopher and rhetorician. He lived in the Roman province of Numidia, in the Berber city of Madauros, modern- ...

' '' Metamorphoses (The Golden Ass)'', are Menippea "extended to the limits of the novel". The most complete picture of the genre in ancient times is to be found in the satires of

. The influence of Menippean satire can be found in ancient

Greek novels Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: * Greeks, an ethnic group. * Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. ** Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ances ...

, in the Roman satires of

Gaius Lucilius Gaius Lucilius (180, 168 or 148 BC – 103 BC) was the earliest Roman satirist, of whose writings only fragments remain. A Roman citizen of the equestrian class, he was born at Suessa Aurunca in Campania, and was a member of the Scipio ...

and

Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ' ...

, and in early Christian literature, including the Gospels. Later examples include ''

The Consolation of Philosophy ''On the Consolation of Philosophy'' ('' la, De consolatione philosophiae'')'','' often titled as ''The Consolation of Philosophy'' or simply the ''Consolation,'' is a philosophical work by the Roman statesman Boethius. Written in 523 while h ...

'' of

Boethius Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, commonly known as Boethius (; Latin: ''Boetius''; 480 – 524 AD), was a Roman senator, consul, ''magister officiorum'', historian, and philosopher of the Early Middle Ages. He was a central figure in the t ...

and ''The Caesars'' of

Julian the apostate Julian ( la, Flavius Claudius Julianus; grc-gre, Ἰουλιανός ; 331 – 26 June 363) was Roman emperor from 361 to 363, as well as a notable philosopher and author in Greek. His rejection of Christianity, and his promotion of Neoplat ...

Characteristics

Bakhtin identifies a number of basic characteristics that distinguish Menippean satire from comparable genres in antiquity: * There is a significantly heightened comic element, although there are exceptions (for example in Boethius). * There is an ''extraordinary freedom of plot and philosophical invention''. It is not bound by the orthodoxies of legend, or by the need for historical or everyday realism, even when its central characters are based on legendary or historical figures. It freely operates in the realm of "the fantastic". * The unrestrained use of the fantastic is internally motivated by a philosophical objective: a philosophical idea, embodied in a seeker of truth, is ''tested'' in ''extraordinary situations''. * Fantastic and mystical elements are combined with a crude ''slum naturalism'': the 'testing of the idea' never avoids the degenerate or grotesque side of earthly existence. The man of the idea encounters "worldly evil, depravity, baseness and vulgarity in their most extreme expression". * The ideas being tested are always of an "ultimate" nature. Merely intellectual or academic problems or arguments had no place: the whole man and his whole life are at stake in the process of the testing of his idea. Everywhere there is the "stripped down ''pro et contra'' of life's ultimate questions". * A three-planed construction—Earth, Olympus and the nether-world—is apparent. Action and dialogue frequently take place on the "threshold" between the planes. * An ''experimental fantasticality'' in narrative point of view appears, for example the "view from above" (''kataskopia''). * An experimentation with ''psychopathological'' states of mind – madness, split personality, unrestrained daydreaming, weird dreams, extreme passions, suicides etc. Such phenomena function in the Menippea to destabilize the unity of an individual and his fate – a unity that is always assumed in other genres such as the epic. The person discovers other possibilities than those apparently preordained in himself and his life: "he loses his finalized quality and ceases to mean only one thing; he ceases to coincide with himself". This non-finalization and non-coincidence is facilitated by a rudimentary form of "dialogic relationship to one's own self". * Breaches of conventional behaviour and disruptions to the customary course of events are characteristic of the Menippea. Scandals and eccentricities have the same function in 'the world' that mental disorders have in 'the individual' – they shatter the fragile unity and stability of the established order and the 'normal', expected course of events. The inappropriate, cynical word that unmasks a false idol or an empty social convention is similarly characteristic. * Sharp contrasts, abrupt transitions, oxymoronic combinations, counterintuitive comparisons and unexpected meetings between unrelated things are essential to the Menippea. Opposites are brought together, or united in a single character – the noble criminal, the virtuous courtesan, the emperor who becomes a slave. * There is often an element of ''social utopia'', usually in the form of a dream or journey to an unknown land. * Widespread use of inserted genres such as novellas, letters, speeches, diatribes, soliloquys, symposia, and poetry, frequently of a parodic nature. * A sharp satirical focus on a wide variety of contemporary ideas and issues. Despite the apparent heterogeneity of these characteristics, Bakhtin emphasizes the "organic unity" and the "internal integrity" of the genre. He argues that Menippean satire is the best expression and the truest reflection of the social-philosophical tendencies of the epoch in which it flowered. This was the epoch of the decline of national legend, the disintegration of associated ethical norms, and the concomitant explosion of new religious and philosophical schools vying with each other over "ultimate questions". The "epic and tragic wholeness of a man and his fate" lost its power as a social and literary ideal, and consequently social 'positions' became devalued, transformed into 'roles' played out in a theatre of the absurd. Bakhtin argues that the generic integrity of Menippean satire in its expression of a decentred reality is a quality that has enabled it to exercise an immense influence over the development of European novelistic prose. According to Bakhtin, the cultural force that underpins the integrity and unity of Menippean satire as a genre, despite its extreme variability and the heterogeneity of its elements, is ''carnival''. The genre epitomises the transposition of the "carnival sense of the world" into the language and forms of literature, a process Bakhtin refers to as '' Carnivalisation''. Carnival as a social event is "''syncretic pageantry'' of a ritualistic sort": its essential elements were common to a great diversity of times and places, and over time became deeply rooted in the individual and collective psyche. These elements revolved around the suspension of the laws, prohibitions and restrictions that governed the structure of ordinary life, and the acceptance and even celebration of everything that was hidden or repressed by that structure. The apparently heterogeneous characteristics of Menippean satire can, in essence, be traced back to the "concretely sensuous forms" worked out in the carnival tradition and the unified "carnival sense of the world" that grew out of them.

Later examples

In a series of articles, Edward Milowicki and Robert Rawdon Wilson, building upon Bakhtin's theory, have argued that Menippean is not a period-specific term, as many Classicists have claimed, but a term for discursive analysis that instructively applies to many kinds of writing from many historical periods including the modern. As a type of discourse, “Menippean” signifies a mixed, often discontinuous way of writing that draws upon distinct, multiple traditions. It is normally highly intellectual and typically embodies an idea, an ideology or a mind-set in the figure of a grotesque, even disgusting, comic character. The form was revived during the Renaissance by

Erasmus Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (; ; English: Erasmus of Rotterdam or Erasmus;''Erasmus'' was his baptismal name, given after St. Erasmus of Formiae. ''Desiderius'' was an adopted additional name, which he used from 1496. The ''Roterodamus'' w ...

, Burton, and

Laurence Sterne Laurence Sterne (24 November 1713 – 18 March 1768), was an Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric who wrote the novels ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'' and '' A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy'', publishe ...

,N. Frye, ''Anatomy of Criticism'' (Princeton 1971) p. 310-12 while 19th-century examples include the ''John Buncle'' of Thomas Amory and ''The Doctor'' of

Robert Southey Robert Southey ( or ; 12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic school, and Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Southey began as a ra ...

. The 20th century saw renewed critical interest in the form, with Menippean satire significantly influencing

postmodern literature Postmodern literature is a form of literature that is characterized by the use of metafiction, unreliable narrator, unreliable narration, self-reflexivity, intertextuality, and which often thematizes both historical and political issues. This sty ...

.Branham (1997
pp. 18–9
/ref> Among the works that contemporary scholars have identified as growing out of the Menippean tradition are: *Erasmus, ''

In Praise of Folly ''In Praise of Folly'', also translated as ''The Praise of Folly'' ( la, Stultitiae Laus or ), is an essay written in Latin in 1509 by Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam and first printed in June 1511. Inspired by previous works of the Italian hu ...

'' (1509) *

François Rabelais François Rabelais ( , , ; born between 1483 and 1494; died 1553) was a French Renaissance writer, physician, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar. He is primarily known as a writer of satire, of the grotesque, and of bawdy jokes ...

, ''

Gargantua and Pantagruel ''The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel'' (french: La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel) is a pentalogy of novels written in the 16th century by François Rabelais, telling the adventures of two giants, Gargantua ( , ) and his son Pantagruel ...

'' (1564) M. H. Abrams, ''A Glossary of Literary Terms'' (1985 edition), article on satire, pp. 166–8. * John Barclay, ''Euphormionis Satyricon'' (1605) * Joseph Hall, ''

Mundus Alter et Idem ''Mundus alter et idem'' is a satirical dystopian novel written by Joseph Hall . The title has been translated into English as ''An Old World and a New'', ''The Discovery of a New World'', and ''Another World and Yet the Same''. Although the text ...

'' (1605) * Miguel Cervantes, '' Novelas ejemplares'' (1612) *

Robert Burton Robert Burton (8 February 1577 – 25 January 1640) was an English author and fellow of Oxford University, who wrote the encyclopedic tome '' The Anatomy of Melancholy''. Born in 1577 to a comfortably well-off family of the landed gentry, Bur ...

, '' The Anatomy of Melancholy'' (1621) *

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Du ...

, ''

A Tale of a Tub ''A Tale of a Tub'' was the first major work written by Jonathan Swift, composed between 1694 and 1697 and published in 1704. It is arguably his most difficult satire, and perhaps his best. The ''Tale'' is a prose parody divided into sections o ...

'' and ''

Gulliver's Travels ''Gulliver's Travels'', or ''Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. In Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships'' is a 1726 prose satire by the Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan ...

'' (1726) *

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his '' nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity—e ...

, ''

Candide ( , ) is a French satire written by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment, first published in 1759. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled ''Candide: or, All for the Best'' (1759); ''Candide: or, Th ...

'' (1759) *

William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the Romantic poetry, poetry and visual art of t ...

, '' The Marriage of Heaven and Hell'' (1794) *

Thomas Love Peacock Thomas Love Peacock (18 October 1785 – 23 January 1866) was an English novelist, poet, and official of the East India Company. He was a close friend of Percy Bysshe Shelley and they influenced each other's work. Peacock wrote satirical novels, ...

, ''

Nightmare Abbey ''Nightmare Abbey'' is an 1818 novella by Thomas Love Peacock which makes good-natured fun of contemporary literary trends. The novel ''Nightmare Abbey'' was Peacock's third long work of fiction to be published. It was written in late March and ...

'' (1818) *

Thomas Carlyle Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher. A leading writer of the Victorian era, he exerted a profound influence on 19th-century art, literature and philosophy. Born in Ecclefechan, ...

, ''

Sartor Resartus ''Sartor Resartus: The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh in Three Books'' is an 1831 novel by the Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher Thomas Carlyle, first published as a serial in ''Fraser's Magazine'' in November 1833 – Augus ...

'' (1836) *

Nikolai Gogol Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol; uk, link=no, Мико́ла Васи́льович Го́голь, translit=Mykola Vasyliovych Hohol; (russian: Яновский; uk, Яновський, translit=Yanovskyi) ( – ) was a Russian novelist, ...

, "

Dead Souls ''Dead Souls'' (russian: «Мёртвые души», ''Mjórtvyje dúshi'') is a novel by Nikolai Gogol, first published in 1842, and widely regarded as an exemplar of 19th-century Russian literature. The novel chronicles the travels and adve ...

" (1842) *

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are '' Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequ ...

, ''

Alice in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (commonly ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English novel by Lewis Carroll. It details the story of a young girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatur ...

'' (1865) *

Fyodor Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (, ; rus, Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский, Fyódor Mikháylovich Dostoyévskiy, p=ˈfʲɵdər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ dəstɐˈjefskʲɪj, a=ru-Dostoevsky.ogg, links=yes; 11 November 18219 ...

, ''

Bobok "Bobok" (russian: Бобок, ''Bobok'') is a short story by Fyodor Dostoevsky that first appeared in 1873 in his self-published '' Diary of a Writer''. The story consists largely of a dialogue between recently deceased occupants of graves in a c ...

'' (1873) *Fyodor Dostoevsky, ''

The Dream of a Ridiculous Man "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" (russian: Сон смешного человека, ''Son smeshnovo cheloveka'') is a short story by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It chronicles the experiences of a man who decides that there is nothing of any value in the wo ...

'' (1877) *

Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. He wrote nearly 50 books, both novels and non-fiction works, as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the prominent Huxle ...

, '' Point Counter Point'' (1928) *

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the Modernism, modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important ...

, ''

Finnegans Wake ''Finnegans Wake'' is a novel by Irish writer James Joyce. It is well known for its experimental style and reputation as one of the most difficult works of fiction in the Western canon. It has been called "a work of fiction which combines a bod ...

'' (1939) *

Flann O'Brien Brian O'Nolan ( ga, Brian Ó Nualláin; 5 October 1911 – 1 April 1966), better known by his pen name Flann O'Brien, was an Irish civil service official, novelist, playwright and satirist, who is now considered a major figure in twentieth c ...

, ''

The Third Policeman ''The Third Policeman'' is a novel by Irish writer Brian O'Nolan, writing under the pseudonym Flann O'Brien. It was written in 1939 and 1940, but after it initially failed to find a publisher, the author withdrew the manuscript from circulation ...

'' (1939) *

Mikhail Bulgakov Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov ( rus, links=no, Михаил Афанасьевич Булгаков, p=mʲɪxɐˈil ɐfɐˈnasʲjɪvʲɪtɕ bʊlˈɡakəf; – 10 March 1940) was a Soviet writer, medical doctor, and playwright active in the fir ...

, '' The Master and Margarita'' (1967) *

Terry Gilliam Terrence Vance Gilliam (; born 22 November 1940) is an American-born British filmmaker, comedian, animator, actor and former member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam has directed 13 feature films, including '' Time Bandits'' (1981), '' ...

, ''

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

'' (1985)Freudenburg, Kirk. ''Satires of Rome: Threatening Poses from Lucilius to Juvenal.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. . *

Dave Eggers Dave Eggers (born March 12, 1970) is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He wrote the 2000 best-selling memoir ''A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius''. Eggers is also the founder of ''Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern'', a lite ...

, '' The Circle'' (2013) According to P. Adams Sitney in "Visionary Film", Mennipea became the dominant new genre in avant-garde cinema at the turn of the century. Filmmakers he cited include Yvonne Rainer,

Sidney Peterson Sidney Peterson (November 15, 1905, Oakland, California – April 24, 2000, New York City) was an American writer, artist, and avant-garde filmmaker. He attended UC Berkeley, worked as a newspaper reporter in Monterey, and spent time as a practici ...

, Michael Snow, and

Hollis Frampton Hollis William Frampton, Jr. (March 11, 1936 – March 30, 1984) was an American avant-garde filmmaker, photographer, writer, theoretician, and pioneer of digital art. He was best known for his innovative and non-linear structural films that defin ...

. For Bakhtin, Menippean satire as a genre reached its summit in the modern era in the novels and short stories of Dostoevsky. He argues that all the characteristics of the ancient Menippea are present in Dostoevsky but in a highly developed and more complex form. This was not because Dostoevsky intentionally adopted and expanded it as a form: his writing was not in any sense a ''stylization'' of the ancient genre. Rather it was a creative renewal based in an instinctive recognition of its potential as a form through which to express the philosophical, spiritual and ideological ferment of his time. It could be said that "it was not Dostoevsky's subjective memory, but the objective memory of the very genre in which he worked, that preserved the peculiar features of the ancient menippea." The generic features of Menippean satire were the ground on which Dostoevsky was able to build a new literary genre, which Bakhtin calls

Polyphony Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, ...

.Bakhtin (1984). pp. 121–22

Frye's definition

Critic

Northrop Frye Herman Northrop Frye (July 14, 1912 – January 23, 1991) was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century. Frye gained international fame with his first book, '' Fearful Symm ...

said that Menippean satire moves rapidly between styles and points of view. Such satires deal less with human characters than with the single-minded mental attitudes, or "

humour Humour (Commonwealth English) or humor ( American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids i ...

s", that they represent: the pedant, the braggart, the bigot, the miser, the quack, the seducer, etc. Frye observed, He illustrated this distinction by positing Squire Western (from ''

Tom Jones Tom Jones may refer to: Arts and entertainment *Tom Jones (singer) (born 1940), Welsh singer *Tom Jones (writer) (1928–2023), American librettist and lyricist *''The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling'', a novel by Henry Fielding published in 1 ...

'') as a character rooted in novelistic realism, but the tutors Thwackum and Square as figures of Menippean satire. Frye found the term 'Menippean satire' to be "cumbersome and in modern terms rather misleading", and proposed as replacement the term 'anatomy' (taken from Burton's ''

Anatomy of Melancholy ''The Anatomy of Melancholy'' (full title: ''The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections. Ph ...

''). In his theory of prose fiction it occupies the fourth place with the

novel A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself ...

, romance and confession.

, ''

Anatomy of Criticism ''Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays'' (Princeton University Press, 1957) is a book by Canadian literary critic and theorist Northrop Frye that attempts to formulate an overall view of the scope, theory, principles, and techniques of literary cr ...

'' (1974 edition) pp. 309–12.

Notes

References

Bakhtin Bakhtin (Russian: Бахтин) is a Russian masculine surname originating from the obsolete verb ''bakhtet'' (бахтеть), meaning ''to swagger''; its feminine counterpart is Bakhtina. The surname may refer to the following notable people: *Ale ...

, Mikhail. ''Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics'', translated by Caryl Emerson. Minnesota U P 1984 *Branham, R Bracht and Kinney, Daniel (1997) ''Introduction'' to

Petronius Gaius Petronius Arbiter"Gaius Petronius Arbiter"
Satyrica'
pp.xiii-xxvi
*Kharpertian, Theodore D. ''A Hand to Turn the Time: The Menippean Satires of

Thomas Pynchon Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, scie ...

''. Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson U P, 1990. *Milowicki, Edward J. and Robert Rawdon Wilson (2002) "A Measure for Menippean Discourse: The Example of Shakespeare." ''Poetics Today'' 23: 2 (Summer 2002). 291–326. * Wilson, Robert Rawdon and Edward Milowicki (1996) "''Troilus and Cressida'': Voices in The Darkness of Troy." Jonathan Hart, ed. ''Reading The Renaissance: Culture, Poetics, and Drama.'' New York: Garland, 1996. 129–144, 234–240. * Wilson, Robert Rawdon (2002) ''The Hydra's Tale: Imagining Disgust'', U Alberta Press, 2002. * Wilson, Robert Rawdon (2007) ''On Disgust: A Menippean Interview''. ''Canadian Review of Comparative Literature'' 34: 2 (June, 2007). pp. 203–213.
Disgust: A Menippean Interview
'

Origins

Classical tradition

Characteristics

Later examples

Frye's definition

See also

Notes

References

Further reading