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 exposin ...

, usually in

prose Prose is language that follows the natural flow or rhythm of speech, ordinary grammatical structures, or, in writing, typical conventions and formatting. Thus, prose ranges from informal speaking to formal academic writing. Prose differs most n ...

, 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 List of narrative techniques, literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a wikt:narrative, narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a meaning with moral or political signi ...

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 corrupt ...

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 is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satire, satirical or irony, ironic imitation. Often its subject is an Originality, original work or some aspect of it (theme/content, author, style, e ...

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 poems divided among five books; all are in the Roman g ...

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). Origin ...

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 (; ; ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek Ancient Greek comedy, comic playwright from Classical Athens, Athens. He wrote in total forty plays, of which eleven survive virtually complete today. The majority of his surviving play ...

, which was based on personal attacks. The writers of such satires include (among others)

Antisthenes Antisthenes (; , ; 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 of Socrates' teachings, ...

Heraclides Ponticus Heraclides Ponticus ( ''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. He is best remembered for proposing that the Earth ...

Bion of Borysthenes Bion of Borysthenes (, ''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. It is, however, for his Cynic-style d ...

, the eponymous

polemicist Polemic ( , ) is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called polemics, which are seen in arguments on controversial to ...

Menippus Menippus of Gadara (; ''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 on Varro and Lucian, who ranks Menippus wi ...

Marcus Terentius Varro Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BCE) 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 Virgil and Cicero). He is sometimes call ...

Lucian Lucian of Samosata (Λουκιανὸς ὁ Σαμοσατεύς, 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 ridi ...

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

Petronius Gaius Petronius Arbiter"Gaius Petronius Arbiter"
Britannica.com. (; ; ; s ...

Apuleius Apuleius ( ), also called Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis (c. 124 – after 170), was a Numidians, Numidian Latin-language prose writer, Platonist philosopher and rhetorician. He was born in the Roman Empire, Roman Numidia (Roman province), province ...

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 Scip ...

Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 BC – 27 November 8 BC), Suetonius, Life of Horace commonly known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). Th ...

Boethius Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, commonly known simply as Boethius (; Latin: ''Boetius''; 480–524 AD), was a Roman Roman Senate, senator, Roman consul, consul, ''magister officiorum'', polymath, historian, and philosopher of the Early Middl ...

, and

Julian the Apostate Julian (; ; 331 – 26 June 363) was the Caesar of the West from 355 to 360 and Roman emperor from 361 to 363, as well as a notable philosopher and author in Greek. His rejection of Christianity, and his promotion of Neoplatonic Hellenism ...

. Elements of Menippean satire are also found in the humor of the

Gospels Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the second century AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message was reported. In this sen ...

Origins

The form is named after the third-century-BC Greek

Cynic Cynic or Cynicism may refer to: Modes of thought * Cynicism (philosophy), a school of ancient Greek philosophy * Cynicism (contemporary), modern use of the word for distrust of others' motives Books * ''The Cynic'', an 1875 book by James Gordon ...

parodist and polemicist

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

(2nd century AD) and

(116–27 BC), the latter being the first to identify the genre by referring to his own satires as ; 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 people, Russian philosopher and literary critic who worked on the phi ...

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

( 446 – 366 BC),

( 390 BC – 310 BC) and

( 325 – 250 BC).

Classical tradition

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

, whose ''

Apocolocyntosis The ''Apocolocyntosis (divi) Claudii'', literally ''The Pumpkinification of ''(''the Divine'')'' Claudius'', is a satire on the Roman emperor Claudius, which, according to Cassius Dio, was written by Seneca the Younger. A partly extant Menippean ...

'', or "Pumpkinification", is the only near-complete classical Menippean satire to survive. It consists of an irreverent

of the

deification Apotheosis (, ), also called divinization or deification (), is the glorification of a subject to divine levels and, commonly, the treatment of a human being, any other living thing, or an abstract idea in the likeness of a deity. The origina ...

of Emperor

Claudius Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; ; 1 August 10 BC – 13 October AD 54), or Claudius, was a Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Nero Claudius Drusus, Drusus and Ant ...

. The Menippean tradition is also evident in

Petronius Gaius Petronius Arbiter"Gaius Petronius Arbiter"
Britannica.com. (; ; ; s ...

' ''

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 in the late 1st century AD, though the manuscript tradition identifi ...

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

' '' 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: 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 ancestor of all kno ...

, in the Roman satires of

and

, and in early

Christian literature Christian literature is the literary aspect of Christian media, and it constitutes a huge body of extremely varied writing. History The Christian genre spans a variety of media and art forms that highlight Christian beliefs, narratives, and m ...

, including the

. Later examples include ''

The Consolation of Philosophy ''On the Consolation of Philosophy'' (), often titled as ''The Consolation of Philosophy'' or simply the ''Consolation'', is a philosophical work by the Roman philosopher Boethius. Written in 523 while he was imprisoned and awaiting execution ...

'' by

and ''The Caesars'' of

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 netherworld—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 ( ; ; 28 October c. 1466 – 12 July 1536), commonly known in English as Erasmus of Rotterdam or simply Erasmus, was a Dutch Christian humanist, Catholic priest and Catholic theology, theologian, educationalist ...

, Burton, and

Laurence Sterne Laurence Sterne (24 November 1713 – 18 March 1768) was an Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric. He is best known for his comic novels ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'' (1759–1767) and ''A Sentimental Journey Thro ...

,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 (; 12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic poetry, Romantic school, and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth an ...

. 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 narration, self-reflexivity, and intertextuality, and which often thematizes both historical and political issues. This style of experimen ...

.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'' ( 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 Renaissance humanism, hu ...

'' (1509) *

François Rabelais François Rabelais ( , ; ; born between 1483 and 1494; died 1553) was a French writer who has been called the first great French prose author. A Renaissance humanism, humanist of the French Renaissance and Greek scholars in the Renaissance, Gr ...

, ''

Gargantua and Pantagruel ''The Five Books of the Lives and Deeds of Gargantua and Pantagruel'' (), often shortened to ''Gargantua and Pantagruel'' or the (''Five Books''), is a pentalogy of novels written in the 16th century by François Rabelais. It tells the advent ...

'' (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'' (1605) *

Miguel Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra ( ; ; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 NS) was a Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelists. He is best known for his no ...

, ''

Novelas ejemplares ''Novelas ejemplares'' ("Exemplary Novels") is a series of twelve novellas that follow the model established in Italy. The series was written by Miguel de Cervantes between 1590 and 1612 and printed in Madrid in 1613 by Juan de la Cuesta. ''N ...

'' (1612) *

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

, ''

The 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 ...

'' (1621) *

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish writer, essayist, satirist, and Anglican cleric. In 1713, he became the Dean (Christianity), dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, and was given the sobriquet "Dean Swi ...

, ''

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. The ''Tale'' is a prose parody divided into sections of "digression" and a "tale" of three brothers, each representin ...

'' and ''

Gulliver's Travels ''Gulliver's Travels'', originally titled ''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 clerg ...

'' (1726) *

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778), known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' Voltaire (, ; ), was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, philosopher (''philosophe''), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit ...

, ''

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, The ...

'' (1759) *

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

, ''

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell ''The Marriage of Heaven and Hell'' is a book by the English poet and printmaker William Blake. It is a series of texts written in imitation of biblical prophecy but expressing Blake's own intensely personal Romantic and revolutionary belie ...

'' (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'' (1818) *

Thomas Carlyle Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian, and philosopher. Known as the "Sage writing, sage of Chelsea, London, Chelsea", his writings strongly influenced the intellectual and artistic culture of the V ...

, ''

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

'' (1836) *

Nikolai Gogol Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol; ; (; () was a Russian novelist, short story writer, and playwright of Ukrainian origin. Gogol used the Grotesque#In literature, grotesque in his writings, for example, in his works "The Nose (Gogol short story), ...

, ''

Dead Souls ''Dead Souls'' ( , pre-reform spelling: ) 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 adventures of Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov ...

'' (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, mathematician, photographer and reluctant Anglicanism, Anglican deacon. His most notable works are ''Alice ...

, ''

Alice in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (also known as ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English Children's literature, children's novel by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics university don, don at the University of Oxford. It details the story of a ...

'' (1865) *

Fyodor Dostoevsky Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. () was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. He is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in both Russian and world literature, and many of his works are considered highly influent ...

, ''

Bobok "Bobok" (, ''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 cemetery, most of who ...

'' (1873) *Fyodor Dostoevsky, ''

The Dream of a Ridiculous Man "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" (, ''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 world. Slipping into nihilism with "terrible anguish ...

'' (1877) *

Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...

, ''

Point Counter Point ''Point Counter Point'' is a novel by Aldous Huxley, first published in 1928. It is Huxley's longest novel, and was notably more complex and serious than his earlier fiction. In 1998, the Modern Library ranked ''Point Counter Point'' 44th ...

'' (1928) *

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

, ''

Finnegans Wake ''Finnegans Wake'' is a novel by Irish literature, Irish writer James Joyce. It was published in instalments starting in 1924, under the title "fragments from ''Work in Progress''". The final title was only revealed when the book was publishe ...

'' (1939) *

Flann O'Brien Brian O'Nolan (; 5 October 19111 April 1966), his pen name being Flann O'Brien, was an Civil Service of the Republic of Ireland, Irish civil service official, novelist, playwright and satirist, who is now considered a major figure in twentieth- ...

, ''

At Swim-Two-Birds ''At Swim-Two-Birds'' is a 1939 novel by Irish writer Flann O'Brien, Brian O'Nolan, writing under the pseudonym Flann O'Brien. It is widely considered to be O'Brien's masterpiece, and one of the most sophisticated examples of metafiction. The ...

'' (1939) and ''

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 ɐfɐˈnasʲjɪvʲɪdʑ bʊlˈɡakəf; – 10 March 1940) was a Russian and Soviet novelist and playwright. His novel ''The M ...

, ''

The Master and Margarita ''The Master and Margarita'' () is a novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, written in the Soviet Union between 1928 and 1940. A censored version, with several chapters cut by editors, was published posthumously in ''Moscow (magazine), Moscow'' magazine in ...

'' (1967) *

Martin Amis Sir Martin Louis Amis (25 August 1949 – 19 May 2023) was an English novelist, essayist, memoirist, screenwriter and critic. He is best known for his novels ''Money'' (1984) and '' London Fields'' (1989). He received the James Tait Black Mem ...

, '' Dead Babies'' (1975) *

Terry Gilliam Terrence Vance Gilliam ( ; born 22 November 1940) is an American-British filmmaker, comedian, collage film, collage animator, and actor. He gained stardom as a member of the Monty Python comedy troupe alongside John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Pa ...

, ''

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

'' (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. His 2000 memoir, '' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius'', became a bestseller and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction. Eggers is a ...

, '' 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 Yvonne Rainer (born November 24, 1934) is an American dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker, whose work in these disciplines is regarded as challenging and experimental.

Sidney Peterson Sidney Peterson (November 15, 1905 – April 24, 2000), was an American writer, artist, avant-garde filmmaker, and educator. He founded the first film courses at the California School of Fine Arts (now San Francisco Art Institute) in 1947. Bio ...

Michael Snow Michael James Aleck Snow (December 10, 1928 – January 5, 2023) was a Canadian artist who worked in a range of media including film, installation, sculpture, photography, and music. His best-known films are ''Wavelength'' (1967) and '' La Rég ...

, 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 def ...

. 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 chord ...

.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 Symmetr ...

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 (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humorism, humoral medicine of the ancient Gre ...

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 an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...

romance Romance may refer to: Common meanings * Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings ** Romantic orientation, the classification of the sex or gender with which a pers ...

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 c ...

'' (1974 edition) pp. 309–12.

Notes

References

*Bakhtin, 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"
Britannica.com. (; ; ; s ...

' ''Satyrica'
pp.xiii-xxvi
*Kharpertian, Theodore D. ''A Hand to Turn the Time: The Menippean Satires of Thomas Pynchon''. 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