At the early stages of preclass and prepolitical
social order it seems that the serious and the comic aspects of the world and
of the deity were equally sacred, equally ‘official.’ This similarity was
preserved in rituals of the later period of history. For instance, in the early
period of the Roman state the ceremonial of the triumphal procession included
on almost equal terms the glorifying and the deriding of the victor. The
funeral rite was also composed of lamenting (glorifying) and deriding the deceased.
But in the definitely consolidated state and class structure such an equality
of the two aspects became impossible. All the comic forms were transferred,
some earlier and others later, to a nonofficial level. There they acquired a
new meaning, were deepened and rendered more complex, until they became the expression
of folk consciousness, of folk culture. Such were the carnival festivities of
an ancient world, especially the Roman Saturnalia, and such were medieval
carnivals. They were, of course, far removed from the primitive community’s
ritual laughter.
What are the peculiar traits of the comic rituals and spectacles of the Middle
Ages? Of course, these are not religious rituals like, for instance, the
Christian liturgy to which they are linked by distant generic ties. The basis
of laughter which gives form to carnival rituals frees them completely from all
religious and ecclesiastical dogmatism, from all mysticism and piety. They are
also completely deprived of the character of magic and prayer; they do not
command nor do they ask for anything. Even more, certain carnival forms parody
the Church’s cult. All these forms are systematically place outside the Church
and religiosity. They belong to an entirely different sphere.
Because of their obvious sensuous character and their strong element of play, carnival images closely resemble
certain artistic forms, namely the spectacle. In turn, medieval spectacles
often tended towards carnival folk culture, the culture of the market-place, and
to and certain extent became one of its components. But the basic carnival
nucleus of this culture is by no means a purely artistic form nor spectacle and
does not, generally speaking, belong to the sphere of art. It belongs to the
borderline between art and life. In reality, it is life itself, but shaped
according to certain patterns of play.
In fact, carnival does not know footlights, in the sense that it does not
acknowledge any distinction between actors and spectators. Footlights would
destroy the carnival, as the absence of footlights would destroy a theatrical
performance. Carnival is not a spectacle seen by a people, they live in it, and
everyone participates because its very idea embraces all the people. While
carnival lasts, there is no other life outside it. 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. Such is the essence of the carnival,
vividly felt by all its participants. It was most clearly expressed and
experienced in the Roman Saturnalia, perhaps received as a true and full, though
temporary return of Saturn’s golden age on earth. The tradition of the Saturnalia
remained unbroken and alive in the medieval church, which expressed this
universal renewal and was vividly felt as an escape from the usual official way
of life.
Clowns and fools, which often figure in Rabelais’ novel, are characteristic of
the medieval culture of humor. They were the constant, accredited representatives
of the carnival spirit in everyday life out of carnival season. Like Triboulet
at the time of Francis I, they were not actors playing their parts on stage, as
did the comic actors of a later period, impersonating Harlequin Hanswurst,
etc., but remained fools and clowns always and whenever they made their
appearance. As such they represented a certain form of life, which was real and
ideal at the same time. They stood on the borderline between life and art, in a
peculiar mid-zone as it were; they were neither eccentrics nor dolts, neither
were they comic actors.
Thus the carnival is the people’s second life, organized on the basis of
laughter. It is a festive life. Festivity is the peculiar quality of all comic
rituals and spectacles of the Middle Ages.
All these forms of carnival were also linked externally to the feasts of the
Church. (one carnival did not coincide with any commemoration of sacred history
or of a saint but marked the last days before Lent, and for this reason was
called Mardi gras or careme-prenant in France and Fastnacht in Germany.) Even more
significant is the genetic link of these carnivals with ancient pagan
festivities, agrarian in nature, which included the comic element in their rituals.
The feast (every feast) is an important primary form of human culture. It cannot
be explained merely by the practical conditions of the community’s work, and it
would be even more superficial to attribute it to the physiological demand for periodic rest. The feast had always an
essential, meaningful philosophic content. No rest period or breathing spell
can be rendered festive per se, something must be added from the spiritual and ideological dimension.
They must be sanctioned not by the world of practical conditions but by the
highest aims of human existence, that is, by the world of ideals. Without this
sanction there can be no festivity.
The festive always essentially related to time, either to the recurrence of an
event in the natural (cosmic) cycle, or to biological or historic timeliness.
Moreover, through all the stages of historic development feasts were linked to
moments of crisis, of breaking points in the cycle of nature or in the life of society
and man. Moments of death and revival, or change and renewal always led to a
festive perception of the world. These moments, expressed in concrete form,
created the peculiar character of feasts.
In the framework of class and feudal political structure this specific
character could be realized without distortion only in the carnival and in similar
marketplace festivals. They were the second
life of the people, who for a time entered the utopian realm of community,
freedom, equality, and abundance.
On the other hand, the official feasts of the Middle Ages, whether ecclesiastical,
feudal, or sponsored by the state, did not lead people out of the exiting world
order and created no second life. On the contrary, they sanctioned the existing
pattern of things and reinforced it. The link with time became formal; changes and
moments of crisis were relegated to the past. Actually, the official east
looked back at the past and used the past to consecrate the present, Unlike the
earlier and purer feast, the official feast
asserted all that was stable, unchanging, perennial: the existing hierarchy,
the existing religious, political, and moral values, norms and prohibitions. It
was the triumph of a truth already established, the predominant truth that was put
forward as eternal and indisputable. This is why the time of the official feast
was monolithically serious and why the element of laughter was alien to it. The
true nature of human festivity was betrayed and distorted. But the true festive
character was indestructible; it had to be tolerated and even legalized outside
the official sphere and had to be turned over to the popular sphere of the
marketplace.
As opposed to the official feast, one might say that carnival celebrated
temporary liberation from the prevailing truth and from the established order;
it marked the suspension of all hierarchies, ranks, privileges, norms and
prohibitions. Carnival was the true feast of time, the feast of becoming,
change, and renewal. It was hostile to all that was immortalized and completed.
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