? Carnival (or the sum of all carnival celebrations) is certainly not a literary phenomenon. This is a mixed form of entertainment. This form is very complicated and diverse. Although they have the same carnival foundation, they show different deformations and colors with different times, nationalities and celebrations. At the carnival, a whole set of specific perceptual forms of language expressing symbolic meanings has been formed, ranging from large-scale complex mass dramas to individual carnival performances. This language shows a unified (but complicated) carnival worldview, which permeates all forms of carnival. This kind of language cannot be completely and accurately translated into the language of words, let alone into the language of abstract concepts. But to a certain extent, it can be transformed into a similar language (which also has a specific perceptual nature), that is to say, into a literary language. Carnival is transformed into the language of literature, which is what we call carnival. It is from this perspective that we highlight and study some factors and characteristics of carnival.
? Carnival-an entertainment without a stage, regardless of actors and audiences. In the carnival, all people are active participants, and all people participate in the carnival performance. People are not passively watching the carnival, strictly speaking, they are not acting, but living in the carnival and living according to the law of carnival, as long as this law is still working. In other words, people live a carnival life. A carnival life is a life that deviates from the normal track. To some extent, this is an "upside-down life" and a "negative life".
? Laws, prohibitions and restrictions that determine the rules and order of ordinary or non-carnival life are cancelled during the carnival. The first thing to be abolished is the hierarchy, and all forms of fear, respect, admiration and politeness related to it, that is, all phenomena caused by people's unequal social status (including age differences). Any distance between people no longer exists; What works is a special kind of carnival, that is, casual and intimate contact between people. This is a very important point in the carnival world experience. People separated by insurmountable hierarchical barriers in their lives have casual close contact in the carnival square. Intimate contact determines the particularity of the organization of mass drama, and also determines that carnival has a free and casual attitude and frank language.
In the carnival, a new relationship is formed between people, which is manifested in the form of concrete sensibility and semi-reality and semi-game. This relationship is just the opposite of the powerful social class in non-carnival life. People's behavior, posture and language are liberated from completely controlling people's various hierarchical positions (class, rank, age and property status) in non-carnival life, so they become like gags from the logic of non-carnival ordinary life, which is out of date. Gag-this is another special category in the feeling of carnival world, which is organically related to the category of intimate contact. The grotesque category reveals and expresses the potential aspects of human nature through concrete perceptual forms.
Associated with intimacy, there is the third kind of carnival-like world experience-condescending. Casual and intimate attitude is applied to all aspects, whether it is treating values, concepts, phenomena or things. In the carnival style, everything that is imprisoned, divided and abandoned by the hierarchical worldview other than carnival is in contact with and combined with each other. Carnival brings sacredness and vulgarity, sublimity and lowliness, greatness and smallness, wisdom and stupidity. Together, engaged, form an organic whole.
Related to this is the fourth kind of carnival-vulgarity, that is, carnival-style vulgarity, a set of practices that reduce the style and turn to plain, foul language related to human reproductive ability in the world, imitation and ridicule of sacred words and proverbs, and so on.
All the above carnival categories are not abstract concepts about equality and freedom, nor are they concepts about universal connection and contradictory unity. On the contrary, it is a concrete and emotional "thought", which is experienced in the form of life and manifested as the "thought" of entertainment ceremony. This idea has been formed and spread among the most extensive people in Europe for thousands of years. So they can have such a great influence on literature in form and genre formation.
These carnival categories, first of all, are the fact that people and the world have become casual and intimate, which has penetrated into literature for thousands of years, especially into the dialogue school in the development of novels. Intimacy shortens the distance between epic and tragedy, and promotes the transformation of the whole description into an intimate atmosphere. This intimate relationship has a great influence on the organization of the whole plot and various scenes in the plot, which determines that the author's attitude towards the protagonist should have a special kind of intimacy (which is impossible in a lofty style); The logic of condescending and demotion is introduced. Finally, it also has a strong influence on the language style of literature itself. ……
The main ceremony at the carnival is to crown the carnival king with a smile and then take off his crown. This kind of ceremony appears in various forms in all carnival celebrations. For example, the most mature forms are Saturnalia, European Carnival and April Fool's Day (April Fool's Day chooses funny priests, bishops and popes instead of kings, depending on the level of the church). In all other celebrations, this ceremony did not take shape until the banquet, although the banquet also elected a short-lived queen and king.
The foundation of king's coronation and coronation ceremony is the core of carnival world feeling, which is the spirit of alternation and change, the spirit of death and rebirth. Carnival is a festival only when everything is destroyed and everything is renewed. It can be said that the basic idea of carnival has been expressed. But we have to emphasize again that this concept is not an abstract concept here, but a vivid sense of the world embodied in a concrete and emotional ceremony.
Coronation and crown removal are two-in-one ceremonies, which show the inevitability of renewal and alternation, and also show the creative significance of alternation between the old and the new; It also shows that any system and order, any power and status (referring to hierarchical status) has a ridiculous relativity. Coronation itself implies the meaning of later coronation, and coronation has duality from the beginning. A coronation is a person who is far away from the real king-a slave or a clown. In this way, the carnival world seems to expose its inner side. In the coronation ceremony, all aspects of etiquette itself, the symbol of power given to the coronation and the clothes worn by the coronation all present duality, gaining a ridiculous relativity and almost becoming some kind of prop (but this is a ritual prop). Their symbolic meaning has become a double meaning (and as a symbol of power in reality, that is, in a non-carnival world, they have only one meaning, that is, absolute, heavy and extremely serious). At the time of coronation, from the beginning, there was a feeling of taking off the crown.
? All the symbols in the carnival are the same, and they always contain negative (dead) prospects in themselves, or vice versa. Birth breeds death and death breeds new life.
The coronation ceremony seems to have finally completed the coronation, and coronation is inseparable from coronation (again, this is a two-in-one ceremony). Through the coronation ceremony, it indicates another coronation. Carnival celebrates the alternation itself, the process of alternation, not what participates in alternation. Carnival can be said to be a function rather than an entity. It does not regard anything as absolute, but advocates that everything has a ridiculous relativity. The crown removal ceremony is just the opposite of the coronation ceremony. You have to take off the emperor's clothes, crown, other symbols of power, laugh at him and beat him. All the symbolic factors in the crown-lifting ceremony have acquired the second meaning-positive significance. This is not a dry absolute negation and elimination (just as there is no absolute affirmation of carnival style, there is no absolute negation). Not only that, it was in the ceremony of taking off the crown that the spirit of carnival alternating renewal was particularly vividly displayed, showing the creative image of death. Because of this, coronation ceremony is most often transplanted into literary works. But what needs to be reiterated is that coronation and coronation are inseparable, combined and transformed. Once absolutely separated, it completely loses the meaning of carnival.
Carnival coronation performance naturally permeates the carnival category (that is, the logic of carnival world): casual intimate contact (especially in coronation), revelry-style condescending relationship (slaves linked to kings), vulgarity (playing with symbols of supreme power) and so on.
? Here, we are not going to discuss the details of the coronation ceremony (although these details are interesting), nor are we going to discuss various carnival variants of different eras and different carnival celebrations. We don't intend to analyze all kinds of auxiliary etiquette in carnival, such as dress etiquette (changing clothes at carnival, changing status and destiny, etc.). ), as well as the way of joking and fooling people at the carnival, bloodless fighting, fighting, exchanging gifts (getting rich is part of the carnival dream) and so on. All these etiquette forms have also been transplanted into literature, which makes the corresponding plots and scenes in the plot gain profound symbolic significance and duality, or endows them with ridiculous relativity, which makes them have a relaxed sense of carnival and enables them to quickly realize the alternation between the old and the new.
But, of course, it is the coronation ceremony that has a great influence on the artistic thinking of literature. This kind of ceremony determines a crown-removing structure in creating artistic images and complete works; At the same time, the crown here has a very important duality and duality. If the duality of carnival is lost in the uncapped images, then these images will degenerate into completely negative exposure of morality or social politics, become a single level, lose its artistic essence and become simple political comments.
It is also necessary to talk about the duality of carnival image in particular. All the images of carnival are integrated into one, which combines the two extremes of evolution and crisis: life and death (the image of death during pregnancy), blessing and curse (the blessing and curse in carnival, including the wishes of death and rebirth), praise and scolding, youth and old age, up and down, face to face and behind, stupidity and intelligence. For carnival thinking, it is very typical that images are paired or opposed to each other (height, thickness, etc.). ), or they are very similar (identical twins). Also typical is the reverse use of articles, such as putting on clothes (inside out), putting pants on your head, using utensils as headgear, using household cookers as weapons and so on. This is a special manifestation of the gag category of the unconventional example of carnival, and it is a life that deviates from its normal track.
The image of fire in Carnival has profound duality. This is the flame that destroys the world and renews it. At the carnival in Europe, there is almost always a special place (usually a cart with all kinds of sundries for carnival), which is called "hell". At the end of the carnival, this "hell" will be burned solemnly (sometimes the "hell" of the carnival is combined with the horn of wealth in pairs). The "Mocoli" ceremony at the Roman Carnival is also quite representative: everyone attending the carnival holds a lighted candle ("candle head") and everyone shouts "Fuck you" at the same time! Trying to blow out other people's candles. In his wonderful description of the carnival in Rome (see Travels of Italy), Goethe tried to reveal the profound meaning behind the carnival image. He once quoted a scene with profound symbolic significance: in Mokoli, a boy blew out his father's candle and shouted happily the carnival cliche: "Go to hell, father!" "
Carnival laughter itself has a profound double meaning. From the source, it is related to the form of laughter in ancient religious ceremonies. Laughter in religious ceremonies is aimed at the sublime: people humiliate and laugh at the sun (the supreme god), other gods and the supreme power on earth, with the aim of forcing them to turn over a new leaf. All forms of laughter in religious ceremonies are associated with death and resurrection, production phenomena and symbols of productivity. Laughter at religious ceremonies is aimed at the crisis in the activities of the sun, the crisis in the life of the gods, and the crisis in the life of the world and people (laughter at funerals). This smile is a mixture of irony and joy.
? It is precisely because laughter in religious ceremonies has been aimed at lofty things (gods and power) since ancient times that it gained a privileged position in ancient Greece, Rome and the Middle Ages. Many things that can't be seen in serious form can appear in the form of laughter. In the Middle Ages, it was legal to ridicule at will; Under this cover, it is possible to imitate the words and rituals of the Bible for ironic purposes.
? Carnival laughter is also aimed at lofty things, that is, the alternation of power and truth, the alternation of different orders in the world. Laughter involves alternating sides, aiming at the alternating process and the crisis itself. In the carnival laughter, there is a combination of death and rebirth, as well as a combination of denial (ridicule) and affirmation (cheering laughter). This is a smile that profoundly reflects the world outlook, and it is an all-encompassing smile. This is the characteristic of double carnival laughter.
? Related to laughter, there is another problem we have to deal with: the carnival nature of satirical simulation. Satire simulation, as we have pointed out, is an inseparable part of Menipeg's satire and all carnival schools. A single genre (such as epic and tragedy) is instinctively incompatible with satirical simulation, while carnival genre, on the other hand, instinctively contains satirical simulation. In ancient Greece and Rome, satire simulation was closely related to carnival world experience. Ironic simulation is to create a homonym without a crown, which means "an upside-down world". So satirical simulation has duality. Ancient Greek and Roman literature actually satirizes everything. Irony, for example, is the ridiculous part of the previous trilogy tragedy. Of course, the ironic simulation here is not simply to deny the simulated object. Everything has something that can be simulated and satirized, that is, it has its own ridiculous side, because everything is reborn and updated through death. In the Roman period, whether it was laughter at a funeral or laughter at a triumph (both of which were naturally carnival ceremonies), satirical simulation was an essential factor. In carnival, the simulation of irony is widely used, and its forms and degrees are also very different: different images (such as various things appearing in pairs in carnival) simulate irony in different ways and from different angles, much like a set of ha ha mirrors, which lengthen, shorten and distort people in different directions and degrees.
It is quite common for satirists to have similar looks in carnival literature. This is particularly evident in Dostoevsky's works. In his novels, almost every important hero has several similarities, and they imitate this important hero in different ways. For Raskolnikov, this is Svy Drigues Love, Lu and Lebedgannikov. For Stavrokin, this is Peter Vilho Vinsky, shatov and kirilov. For Ivan Kara Matsov, this is Devil and Lala Fund. In each film, the important hero goes to death (being denied) in order to gain new life (purity, transcendence).
In the pure form of satirical parody in modern literature, this kind of simulation is almost completely divorced from the carnival world feeling. However, in the satirical simulators of the Renaissance (works by Rotterdam, rabelais and others), the carnival flame is still burning, because the satirical simulators have duality, and they also feel their connection with death, that is, rebirth. Because of this, it is possible to produce Cervantes' greatest and most carnival novel, Don Quixote, in the embrace of satirical parody. Dostoevsky once commented on this novel: "There is no more profound and powerful work in the world. This is the latest and greatest writing produced by human thought at present, and it is the most pungent irony that people can show. For example, ask people at the end of the earth:' Do you know your life on the earth? "How do you sum up this life?" At that time, people could pass Don Quixote silently and say,' This is my summary of life. "Can you blame me?" "
? It is worth noting that Dostoevsky's evaluation of Don Quixote takes a typical form of "marginal dialogue".
? At the end of our analysis of carnival (from the perspective of literary carnival), we need to say a few more words about carnival square.
The basic stage of carnival performance is the square and adjacent streets. Naturally, carnival also entered private houses. In fact, it is only limited by time, not by space. It won't appear on the stage of the theater. But the central venue can only be the square, because the carnival is all-encompassing in meaning, and everyone needs to join in intimate communication. The square is a symbol of national character. Carnival Square, the square where carnival performances are performed, adds a symbolic meaning. The latter expands and deepens the meaning of the square. In carnival literature, the square, as a place for plot development, has duality and duality, because through the real square, we can see a carnival square with casual intimate communication and national coronation. Even other venues (of course, they may appear in both the plot and reality), as long as they can become places where all kinds of people meet and communicate, such as streets, pubs, roads, bathhouses, ship decks and so on. , will add a sense of carnival square (no matter how to describe these places truly, all-encompassing carnival symbolism will not be overwhelmed by naturalism).
In ancient Greece and Rome, carnival celebrations played an important role in the lives of ordinary people. This was true in ancient Greece, and even more so in ancient Rome. In ancient Rome, the main (but not the only) carnival celebration was Saturnalia. In medieval Europe and the Renaissance, this kind of celebration was as significant as (or even greater than). Their presence here is partly a direct and vivid continuation of Roman Saturnalia. In the field of folk carnival culture, the tradition between ancient Greece, Rome and the Middle Ages has never been interrupted. At all stages of its development, carnival celebrations have had a great impact on the development of the whole culture, including the development of literature. So far, this effect has not been fully evaluated and studied. And some schools and genres in literature have a particularly high degree of carnival. In ancient Greece and Rome, the highest degree of carnival was the ancient elegant comedy and the whole harmony of Zhuang style. In Rome, all forms of satire, even in organizational methods, are related to Saturnalia. Satire was created for Saturnalia; Or at least it was created under the cover of the legal carnival-like freedom in this festival (for example, all the creations of Martellis are directly related to Saturnalia).
In the Middle Ages, a large number of humorous literature and satirical literature written in various folk languages and Latin were associated with carnival celebrations in one way or another, that is, with carnival itself, with April Fool's Day, with free Easter laughter and so on. In the Middle Ages, in fact, almost every religious festival had people reveling in the square (especially the main festival). Many national festivals, such as the Bull Run Festival, have a distinct carnival nature. On the days when there are fairs, when grapes are harvested, when religious cautionary dramas, religious suspense dramas and satirical farce are staged, the atmosphere that covers everything is the carnival atmosphere. The whole life of drama entertainment in the Middle Ages was carnival. Major cities in the late Middle Ages (such as Rome, Naples, Venice, Paris, Lyon, Nuremberg, Cologne, etc. ) Spend about three months a year (sometimes more) and live a full-scale carnival life. Perhaps it can be said (under certain conditions, of course) that people in the Middle Ages seem to live two kinds of lives: one is a routine, very serious, sad life, subject to strict hierarchical order, full of fear, dogma, reverence and piety; The other is the free life in the carnival square, full of double laughter, full of blasphemy and distortion of all sacred things, full of disrespect and indecency, full of casual and informal communication with everyone and everything. These two kinds of life have been recognized, but there is a strict time limit between them.
? If we don't consider the mutual substitution and mutual exclusion of these two systems of life and thinking (conventional system and carnival system), we can't correctly understand the characteristics of people's cultural consciousness in the Middle Ages, and we can't understand many phenomena in medieval literature, such as "parodia sacra" (that is, "sacred parody").
? In this era, people's speeches in European countries have also appeared carnival: the whole level of speech, that is, the so-called intimate square speech, is filled with a sense of carnival world; Formed a set of carnival-style free and casual gestures. In all the intimate words of Europeans, especially the words of abuse and ridicule, we are still full of carnival-like relics until today; Even modern abusive and sarcastic gestures are full of carnival symbols.
? During the Renaissance, the carnival wave broke down many barriers and broke into many fields of conventional life and conventional world outlook. First of all, this trend has swept almost all the authentic literary schools and brought them important changes. The whole literature has reached a very profound and almost all-encompassing carnival. Carnival-like sense of the world and its unique category, laughter and laughter at the carnival, symbolic significance of coronation performance at the carnival, symbolic significance of translocation and dressing up, duality of the carnival, and the colors of free and informal language like the carnival (intimacy, explicit, gag, praise and scolding, etc. )-these are deeply infiltrated into almost all literary genres. On the basis of carnival-like world feelings, various complex Renaissance world views have gradually formed. Through the carnival-like world experience, to some extent, it reflected the ancient Greek and Roman culture understood by humanists at that time. Renaissance was the peak of carnival life, and then it began to decline.
? Since17th century, the folk carnival life has tended to decline, almost losing its national nature, and its proportion in people's lives has dropped sharply. Its form of expression has become poor, simple and simple. As early as the Renaissance, a mask culture of court festivals began to develop, which absorbed a series of carnival forms and symbols (mainly decorative symbols outside). Later, more extensive (rather than palace) forms of celebration and entertainment began to be developed, which may be called the development road of masks. This road retains a free and informal carnival sense of the world, and reflects the influence of this sense of the world in the past. Many forms of carnival broke away from their own folk foundation and turned from the square to this indoor masked road. This development path has continued to this day. Many ancient carnival forms have been preserved, continue to exist in the burlesque in the folk performing arts in the square, and in the circus performances, and are still being renovated. In modern drama entertainment activities, some carnival factors have also been passed down. Tellingly, even the "actor's world" retains some carnival freedom, its sense of the world and charm. It is Goethe's The Learning Age of William Meister that reveals this point very accurately. In our time, this is the memoir of Nemirovich Danchenko. In the romantic life of so-called celebrities, there are also some traces of carnival atmosphere conditionally retained; However, here, in most cases, what we see is a degenerate and vulgar sense of carnival world (you know, the national spirit of carnival doesn't even exist here).
These branches are the late branches of the carnival trunk, and also the branches that make the trunk barren. At the same time as these late branches, there were and still are square carnivals and other carnival celebrations in the exact sense. But they all lost the meaning of the past and the rich and complicated forms and symbols.
As a result of all this, the carnival and carnival-style world feelings become insignificant and vague, losing the true nationality of the square. Therefore, the carnival of literature has also changed its nature. It was not until the second half of the seventeenth century that people directly participated in carnival performances and carnival world feelings. People still live in carnival, which means that carnival itself is a form of life. So the carnival is direct (you know, some schools even serve the carnival directly). The origin of carnival is carnival itself. In addition, carnival has the function of constructing genre, that is, it not only determines the content of the work, but also determines the genre basis of the work. /kloc-after the second half of the 0/7th century, carnival is almost completely no longer the direct source of carnival. The influence of carnival literature has replaced the status of carnival. In this way, carnival has become a purely literary tradition. As early as in the works of Soller and Scarron, we can see that in addition to the direct influence of carnival, carnival literature played a powerful role in the Renaissance (mainly referring to rabelais and Cervantes), and this latter role occupied a dominant position. Therefore, carnival has become a tradition of literary genre. In this kind of literature that has been divorced from the direct source-carnival, some factors of carnival will change and gain new meaning.
? Of course, carnival in the original sense, other carnival celebrations (such as bullfighting), masked entertainment, parody of celebrities, and other forms of folk carnival literature. It still has some direct influence on today's literature. But in most cases, this influence is limited to the content of the work, and does not involve the genre basis of the work. In other words, it does not have the power to form a new style.