What is Bakhtin's Theory of Carnivalesque?

Question

What is the relationship between the carnivalesque and popular culture?

Answer 1

Ruth and Bakhtin’s Theory of Carnival

Mikhail Bakhtin’s thematization of humor and the comic has

made him popular in postmodern critical circles precisely because his

studies expand the theory of carnival beyond a single folk event and

identify the carnivalesque as a semiotic cultural code, signifying more

than just texts which focus on the specific popular tradition in

medieval Europe. Bakhtin’s theory of carnival, manifest in his

discussions of Rabelais and “forbidden laughter” in medieval folk

culture, argued that folk celebrations which allowed for rowdy humor

and the parody of authority offered the oppressed lower classes relief

from the rigidity of the feudal system and the church and an

opportunity for expressing nonconformist, even rebellious views. The

carnivalesque spirit, therefore, is a form of popular, “low” humor which

celebrates the anarchic and grotesque elements of authority and of

humanity in general and encourages the temporary “crossing of

boundaries” where the town fool is crowned, the higher classes are

mocked, and the differences between people are flattened as their

shared humanity, the body, becomes subject of crude humor. Bakhtin

saw in carnivalesque humor a social force that allowed a text to enter a

sociopolitical discourse, while enjoying impunity, and thus bring about

cultural transformation.