Although the terms “grotesque” and “modernist” emerge in a variety of discussions and descriptions in a number of disciplines, certain theorists manage to acknowledge the complexities of these ideas while going on to create a structured, coherent framework for examining the histories and applications of the concepts. A particularly thorough etymological history of the grotesque appears in Geoffrey Galt Harpham’s On The Grotesque: Strategies of Contradiction in Art and Literature (1982). Harpham explains that the word “grotesque” dates back to the 1480's when antiquarians discovered the ruins of Nero’s palace in Rome, which had been buried and built upon. Among the features of this labyrinthine structure are elaborate frescoes by the artist Fabullus dating to the 60's C.E. that depict “graceful fantasies, symmetrical anatomical impossibilities, small beasts, human heads, and delicate, indeterminate vegetables, all presented as ornament with a faintly mythological character imparted by representations of fauns, nymphs, satyrs, and centaurs” (Harpham 26). Harpham further explains that “Fabullus’s frescoes were among the first sights [from the excavation] to be made available [to the public]. More because of the setting than because of any qualities inherent in the designs themselves, a consensus soon emerged according to which the designs were called grottesche–of or pertaining to underground caves,” or “grottos” (27).
Similar paintings were found in other Roman ruins, leading observers to use the term “grotto-esque” to describe any frescoes reminiscent of the ones in Nero’s palace.
Harpham observes that “although the designs were never intended to be underground, nor Nero’s palace a grotto, the word is perfect” in that it reflects the nature of the grotesque. The cave is the home of early humans and their first paintings, and a symbol of “the underground, of burial, and of secrecy” (27), as well as being a symbol of the primordial womb, a site of perpetual creation and transformation.
Application of grotesque impulses in literature and painting predates the use of the term, however, dating at least as far back as Dante’s Inferno (1308). 22 Hieronymous Bosch’s painting “The Garden of Earthly Delights” (1514-1416) is the most famous example of the early grotesque in the visual arts. In terms of a literary grotesque, most theorists look back to Dante as the most influential, if not the first, to spawn a literary incarnation of the grotesque, his images of demons and monstrous transformations in the
Inferno bringing the grotesque impulse to life with disturbing vividness. Dante and
Bosch applied Christian morality to the grotesque, depicting inner transformations of the soul in outward representations of physical action, metamorphosis, and deformity, moving grotesque expression from mere fancy to cultural and spiritual commentary.
Much of post-Medieval grotesque art and literature retained Dante and Bosch’s use of the grotesque as an overt physical representation of internal or intangible human qualities. However, the Renaissance saw an addition to the repertoire of the grotesque that was more subtle, as addressed by Willard Farnham in The Shakespearean Grotesque (1971), a study that reviews briefly many of the changes in the aesthetics of the grotesque
22
The Inferno, especially, is a work often cited as a crucial influence on certain “High Modernists,” particularly Eliot and Pound.
as it evolved in representation and meaning from primarily visual creations in the
Classical Age into the art and literature of the Medieval Period and into the Renaissance. Among other changes, the aesthetic of the grotesque evolved from a focus on physically non-human or semi-humanoid monsters to include more subtle portrayals of the
grotesque nature of the madness and misdeeds of “conventional” human beings, like the villains of Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Webster. This important shift in the grotesque from the portrayal of fantastical monsters to human monsters marks a crucial expansion of representation that served as a catalyst in the modernity of the conceptual literary grotesque. Had the grotesque not developed in such a way, it may have stagnated and even faded away as an artistic form. However, the grotesque is adaptable and modern in its nature, using shock, fear, disgust, or dark humor to force its audience to confront subjects that are commonly ignored, denied, or “sugar coated.” In the Renaissance, as human understanding continued to progress steadily (and even exponentially in some ways), human anxiety turned away from the unknown outer world and toward the unknown complexities of the inner world of the human mind. This shift in intellectual attention from a sensational grotesque of surface-level shock and fascination to a conceptual grotesque as a tool for more direct cultural diagnosis is a pivotal step in the development of this creative mode, allowing for greater variety of subject matter and representation.
The “grotto-esque” images depicted on the excavated frescoes of Roman ruins seem to have made quite an impression, because the term was retained and developed over the centuries, used as a concept in painting, illustration, sculpture, architecture, and literature. Contemporarily, the word “grotesque” is often loosely associated with
elements that are disturbing, disgusting, horrific, shocking, unnatural, absurd, and even strangely comical. When these associations are applied in vernacular usage, “grotesque” may describe anything from a violent scene on the television news to a badly misshapen cake, or any idea, noise, smell, or notion that is upsetting or unpleasant. In some
applications, the term has been generalized and watered down so much as to be nearly devoid of any depth of meaning. However, a body of scholarship does exist that
examines true grotesque art and literature with seriousness and enthusiasm. The literary grotesque has been traditionally connected with such authors as Charles Robert Maturin, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allen Poe, Franz Kafka, Joseph Conrad, and Flannery O’Connor, all of whom have made significant contributions to the development of fiction. However, the works of many other influential writers (Eliot, Woolf, Pound, Loy, Joyce,
Hemingway, Faulkner, Beckett, Ionesco) include grotesque elements that are not
commonly included in critical discussions, the examination of which may assist scholars in better understanding those writers in particular and literature in general.
The first theorist of the grotesque to differentiate grotesque art of conceptual insight from mere strangeness or shock value was John Ruskin, who distinguishes in The
Stones of Venice (1853) the marked difference between the “false grotesque” and the
“true grotesque.” According to Ruskin, the “false grotesque” invokes disturbing or disgustingly comical imagery without any attempt at philosophical meaning or message. “True grotesque” art uses the elements of alienation, transformation, subjectivity,
distortion, absurdity, and shock in order to relate profound observations about the human condition. Ruskin was one of the only theorists to examine the conceptual nature of the grotesque until interest picked up a bit in the latter half of the twentieth century.
Ruskin’s discussion of the grotesque introduces a Victorian moralistic perspective on pre- Victorian grotesque art and literature, moving away from mere description of grotesque trappings and toward an understanding of the grotesque as cultural commentary. However, it was not until Wolfgang Kayser joined the discussion in 1957 that the grotesque gained widespread critical attention as a long-standing, ever-enduring, multi- dimensional mode of philosophical representation in art and literature. Kayser’s The
Grotesque in Art and Literature revolutionized the ways in which scholars examined
grotesque literature by establishing a pattern of three major themes throughout grotesque creations. After reviewing an array of historical and stylistic information and ideas, Kayser concludes that the grotesque is “THE ESTRANGED WORLD,” and “A PLAY WITH THE ABSURD,” leading to “AN ATTEMPT TO INVOKE AND SUBDUE THE DEMONIC ASPECTS OF THE WORLD” (187-188, Kayser’s capitalization)23.
Kayser’s observation may appear to some readers as an oversimplification of the grotesque, but it may be more appropriate to address his argument as an attempt at efficiency and clarity. By narrowing down the thematic elements of the grotesque into what may be paraphrased as the concepts of “alienation,” “absurdity,” and “exorcism,” Kayser allows the reader to focus on what he believes are the central ideals that make the “true grotesque” what it is. The variations on imagery and style are then put into
perspective as different modes of addressing the three themes. Kayser’s role in the study of the grotesque is like that of Freud’s role in the study of psychoanalysis. It is almost impossible for theorists after Kayser to discuss the grotesque without building from his
23
Although Kayser’s capitalization is somewhat distracting, I have chosen to keep it when quoting him, primarily for the sake of accuracy of representation of the original text.
work, often starting with his principles and applying them to new works of art and literature.
Kayser’s The Grotesque in Art and Literature is matched only by Bakhtin’s Rabelais and His World (1968) in its value as an historical account of the development of
the grotesque. Bakhtin’s work focuses on pre-Romantic forms of the grotesque,
especially the Renaissance grotesque, which retained much of the ancient and Medieval focus on carnival and festival elements. The presence of grotesque imagery in the celebrations of the common folk of Medieval and Renaissance Europe is an aspect of the grotesque that had not been previously examined, one that Bakhtin found to be very important. In these “carnivalesque” celebrations, the fears of the masses were symbolized through comically grotesque masked figures and effigies, and then were ritualistically driven out or destroyed by a cheering crowd, effectively flipping certain hierarchies of power. This expression of the grotesque served as a unifying coping mechanism, a communal exercise that reinforced the idea of community triumphing over evil or adversity. These elements of the grotesque, Bakhtin insists, were a celebration of the grotesque as liberation, free play, and laughter. Bakhtin draws a clear distinction between this older “carnival-grotesque” and the “Romantic grotesque,” which influenced the modern grotesque. The “Romantic” and modern grotesque, he asserts, lose the element of carnival and laughter and transform the grotesque impulse into “the
expression of subjective, individualistic world outlook very different from the carnival folk concept of previous ages” (36). Hence, the grotesque laughter that served to fortify human cultures against their fears by reducing them to comical monstrosities gave way to a laughter that was “cut down to cold humor, irony, sarcasm. It ceased to be joyful and
triumphant hilarity” (38). Bakhtin criticizes Kayser for examining more modern grotesque works and concepts without treating its oldest incarnations and themes, particularly the celebratory aspects of laughter and carnival in its pre-Romantic incarnations.
Bakhtin’s criticism is valid for someone whose goal is to give a comprehensive historical overview of the various phases of the grotesque. However, Bakhtin himself, after acknowledging that the grotesque did change and develop over time, gives only a cursory glance at the modern grotesque and comes back to his own focus, Rabelais as a Renaissance writer of the grotesque. Thus, Kayser and Bakhtin both ignore certain aspects of the grotesque and focus on others. In light of Bakhtin’s work with the Medieval and Renaissance carnival-grotesque, Kayser’s analysis of the grotesque does seem to fall short of a thorough history of grotesque evolution. However, Kayser’s principles of alienation, absurdity, and exorcism function well as a starting point toward a greater understanding of modern grotesque works. As Bakhtin points out, the modern grotesques tend to fall away from the more communal, revitalizing themes and to move toward alienation and harsh criticism of humanity and its cultures. In effect, Bakhtin agrees with Kayser’s analysis of the modern grotesque, especially with relation to the development of alienation as a central concept, which was a major shift from the older carnival aspect.24 Although they focus on two different periods of grotesque
development, each theorist is essentially right about his chosen focus.
To consider the ideas of Ruskin, Kayser, and Bakhtin on the subject of the grotesque is to acknowledge that the difference between what has come to be labeled as
24
If Kayser had presented his work as an analysis of the modern grotesque specifically, Bakhtin may not have had any complaints.
“pulp horror” and what Ruskin calls the “true grotesque” is great indeed. The grotesque does not merely approach the horrible for the sake of creating a mood and a fear
response. It approaches the strange or horrible as a means of addressing some of the most profound concerns of the human condition: good and evil, sin and redemption, sanity and madness, alienation and community, objectivity and subjectivity, logic and absurdity. The grotesque, whether it is the older “carnival-grotesque” of communal laughter or the modern grotesque of alienation, depicts human problems and fears in such a way as to make them approachable and comprehensible for the sake of coping with them.
Although each theorist of the grotesque makes his or her own unique
contributions, the principles of Ruskin, Kayser, and Bakhtin are staples of most studies. Among the more contemporary theorists, Philip Thomson and Geoffrey Galt Harpham do a particularly efficient job of explaining and building upon their predecessors, bringing a certain amount of clarity and consistency to this complex discussion. Similar or even identical terms and concepts come up repeatedly in various examinations of the visual and literary grotesque. For instance, in the introduction to Human Concern / Personal
Torment: The Grotesque in American Art, Robert Doty, Curator of the Whitney Museum
of American Art, explains:
To those artists who are engaged not only in wresting signs and symbols from the chaos of action, but also in mocking the complacency, coarseness and banality of the environment, the contamination of life is the core of existence. For artists of this conviction, the world is estranged, life is absurd, the grotesque is the measure of all things, spiritual or material. (Doty 4)
Doty’s description of grotesque visual art is compatible with the ideas put forward by Kayser and others, including an emphasis on alienation and the absurd. According to Doty, the grotesque includes:
the rejection of reason, its benefits, protection and institutions... immersion in the subconscious and its offspring, such as fear, passion and perversity... a clash of elements, an obsession with opposites which force the co-existence of the beautiful with the repulsive, the sublime with the gross, humor with horror, the organic with the mechanical... emphasis on ridicule, surprise and virulence, through caricature, the deformation and distortion of salient characteristics. The grotesque threatens the foundations of existence through the subversion of order and the treacherous reversal of familiar and hostile. (Doty 4)
Doty focuses on the paradoxical nature of this artistic mode and on the juxtaposition of seemingly incompatible subjects or images to comment upon what Kayser calls the “DEMONIC ELEMENTS” of the world. The “clash” of elements depicts a connection between traditionally incompatible ideas and aesthetics, resulting in a statement about the true subjectivity that lies beneath the human illusion of objective perception. Doty’s observations, though focused on visual art, serve as a concise description of the grotesque impulse in literature as well.