The Carnivalesque/Bakhtin in Plautus

The Carnivalesque in Plautus
Vishal Ganesan
Latin 530
10/3/2012
• Bakhtin and Plautus: a match made in heaven
o Bakhtin, like Plautus, lived in a time of great social upheaval. Arrested immediately after
publishing his first book, Bakthin spent most of the Stalinist era working in isolation (Dentith 6).
o Plautus, although he certainly enjoyed immense popularity, stood athwart the political attitudes
of the elite. Derided by Horace after his death, Plautus has continued to attract a peculiar hostility
among academics. This, despite the fact that his substantial corpus of plays is our oldest extant
Latin text (Segal 4).
• What is the Carnivalesque?
o Bakhtin was predominantly interested in the Carnival of Medieval Europe and the Renaissance,
although he saw the Roman Saturnalian festivals as the purest expression of the carnival
atmosphere.
§ “During carnival time life is subject only to its laws, that is, the laws of its own freedom.
It has a universal spirit; it is a special condition of the entire world, of the world’s revival
and renewal, in which all take part” (Bakhtin, Rabelais, 7-8).
o According to Bakhtin, the carnival provided a temporary escape from all established social
hierarchy.
§ “The carnival celebrated temporary liberation from the prevailing truth and from the
established order; it marked the suspension of all hierarchical rank, privileges, norms, and
prohibitions … It was hostile to all that was immortalized and completed” (Bakhtin,
Rabelais, 10).
§ Examples here are plentiful. Consider the degradation of the paterfamilias and pietas in
Casina and Pseudolus. The adulescens is willing, with the help of the clever slave, to
diddle his dad and (for the sake of pietas) diddle his mother too.
o But how exactly does this work?
§ Folk carnival humor, which included things like ritual spectacles, comic verbal
compositions, various billingsgate (curses, oaths, etc) (Bakthin, Rabelais, 5).
§ Grotesque realism
• “The essential principle of grotesque realism is degradation, that is, the lowering
of all that is high, spiritual, ideal, abstract; it is a transfer to the material level, to
the sphere of earth and body in their indissoluble unity.” (Bakthin, Rabelais, 19-
20).
• As our only extant tragicomoedia Plautus’ Amphitruo presents a particularly
illustrative example of grotesque realism. The ideal of the Roman matrona and
the gods themselves are degraded and turned into objects of ridicule
(Christenson).
• What about the effect on the audience?
o This is where the controversy begins, for there are many schools of thought regarding the “role”
of comedy.
§ Carnivalesque as a safety-valve
• According to the safety valve theory the carnival (i.e. temporary disregard for the
social hierarchy) was sanctioned by the elite in order to dissipate tension that
might be expended in more violent ways.
§ The two mode theory
• Plautine comedy includes two forms of comedy, naturalistic and farcical

Vishal Ganesan
Latin 530
10/3/2012
The Carnivalesque in Plautus
• “Since everyone is subordinated in some sense, the desire to participate
imaginatively in staged rebellion does not divide the audience (say, between
masters and slaves or between fathers and sons) but unifies it” (McCarthy 20).
• Recall the ending of Pseudolus (Ps. 1327-29), in which slave and master
leave the stage to drink together. The question of Pseudolus’ liberation
remains unresolved, though the power dynamic between the two
characters is undeniably altered.
§ Alternatives?
• The safety-valve theory is intuitively appealing, but ultimately unpersuasive. It’s
hard to believe that these performances had no residual impact on the audience
members.
• Bakhtin described the carnival as a “utopia,” a glimpse into what the world could
be like (Bakhtin, Rabeleis, 9).

Bibliography
The Carnivalesque in Plautus
Vishal Ganesan
Latin 530
10/3/2012
Batstone, W. 2005. “Plautine Farce and Plautine Freedom: An Essay on the Value of Metatheatre,” pp. 13-46 in
Batstone, W. and G. Tissol, eds., Defining Genre and Gender in Latin Literature: Essays Presented to
William S. Anderson on his Seventy-Fifth Birthday. New York.
Christenson, D. M. 2001. “Grotesque Realism in Plautus' Amphitruo,” Classical Journal 96: 243-60.
Bakhtin, M. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin, trs. C. Emerson and M. Holquist.
Austin, TX.
Bakhtin, M. 1984. Rabelais and his World, trs. H. Iswolsky. Bloomington, IN.
Dentith, S. 1995. Bakhtinian Thought: An Introductory Reader. London.
McCarthy, K. 2000. Slaves, Masters, and the Art of Authority in Plautine Comedy. Princeton.
Segal, E. 1987. Roman Laughter. 2nd edition. Oxford.