* Mikhail Bakhtin, "On Popular Festive Forms" from Rabelais and His World (download through canvas, not on OCRA)
* Anonymous, A
Christmas Mumming, The Play of St. George in Gassner (OCRA)
Recommended: Anonymous, The Farce of the Fart in Enders' anthology of medieval Farce
(download through Canvas, not on OCRA); Natalie Zemon Davis, "The Reasons of Misrule" from Society and Culture in Early Modern France
GROUP FIVE TO PERFORM
Image above: Pieter Breughel the Elder, "The Fight Between Carnival and Lent" 1559 (see it bigger). Carnival is an annual festival shared by the entire community. Here in a Flemish town in the mid-16th century are the various Carnival activities taking place in the town center: people are playing music, dressed in costumes (one is a wild bear), hawking street food, and enjoying themselves. In the center of the painting is a joust between large, robust Carnival (left) and thin Lent (right). The Carnival figure is sitting astride a large wine barrel pointing his ‘lance’ (which is a spit laden with roast meat) at Lent, who appears to offer his opponent small fish (the character is dressed as a nun, but the actor is male). This competition is part of Carnival’s essence: a mock battle between two forces: fat man Carnival with his juicy meat and weak, emaciated Lent with her paltry fish. In Carnival the world is turned upside down. By rights Carnival should win the battle by his sheer size, but he cannot. Lent is coming and ... will always win this battle? (Pieter Brueghel the Elder, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.)
Reading Response choices:
1. Why does Bahktin rely on the words "inversion" and/or "ambivalence" to describe the popular festive form of carnival?
2. What are some reasons for the “topsy-turvy” world of carnival? What else besides the “pressure valve” theory might be suggested? Can you think of example of the "carnivalesque" today? Does it still exist? Does it function in the same way?
3. Historian Jackson Lears has suggested in Fables of Abundance that advertising is the arena of the contemporary carnivalesque (topsy/turvy or misrule). Can you find an advertising image that has "carnivalesque" qualities? If so, describe the ad and discuss how it may be related. What are its "reasons for misrule"?
4. Can you tell whether there are Pagan or pre-Christian elements as well as Christian elements in A Christmas Mumming? What might they be? If this play fuses Christian and Pagan elements, what kind of "performance theory" might be crafted using this play as an example? That is, if one were to ask "What is a social or political purpose of performance?" what kind of answer might this play suggest?
5. Take up the question below about the bull, or the one with the 4 videos below that on mumming.
A provocation for the fun of thought:
Think about the following. On Oct 29, 2008, a group of Christians declared it "Day of Prayer for the World's Economies" with the mandate to P.U.S.H. (pray until something happens). They went to Wall Street and prayed to the Wall Street Bull.
Other groups have made the bull a site for public street performance as well. The "zombie" event visible at this link, utlilized the signature medieval element of blood. It was posted on at least one blog after the Christian prayer to the bull as, supposedly, a response to that event. It was not, but elements returned in force with Occupy Wall Street. In any case -- same bull, different performance modes. Topsy-turvy? Misrule? Or is right-side-up/upside-down not the best way to theorize the carnivalesque? Bahktin proposed ambivalent laughter. Are the zombie "protesters" ambivalent?
Some links on mumming
A Newfoundland door-to-door tradition, 2011 rendition
2012 mummers
This 2013 Philly mummers video is hard to describe:
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