University of Kentucky UKnowledge Literature in General English Language and Literature 2014 The Modern Satiric Grotesque and Its Traditions John R. Clark University of South Florida Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Clark, John R., "The Modern Satiric Grotesque and Its Traditions" (2014). Literature in General. 2. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_literature_in_general/2 The Modern Satiric Grotesque And Its Traditions This page intentionally left blank The Modern Satiric Grotesque And Its Traditions JOHN R. CLARK THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY Copyright © 1991 by The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine College, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Club, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and· Western Kentucky University. Editorial and Sales Offices: Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Clark, John R., 1930- The modern satiric grotesque and its traditions / John R. Clark. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN: 978-0-8131-5619-4 1. Grotesque in literature. 2~ Satire-History and criticism. I. Title. PN56.G7C57 1991 809.7-dc20 90-27474 This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials.@ Contents Preface vii Introduction 1Index Part I. Dark Comedy 7 1. Deadly Laughter 9 2. Satiric Gothic, Satiric Grotesque 17 Part II. Stratagems 27 3. Degrading the Hero 29 4. Debunking the Author 36 5. Dislocating the Language 51 6. Gaming with the Plot 67 7. Further Intrusion and Obstruction 77 8. Discordant Endings 83 9. Infernal Repetition 90 Part III. Themes 103 10. Ennui 105 11. Scatology 116 12. Cannibals 131 13. Dystopias and Machines 139 14. Entropy and Armageddon 148 Part IV. Conclusion 157 15. The Death of the Humanities 159 Notes 165 Index 203 This page intentionally left blank Preface The intention of this study is to define and illustrate the major tactics and topics deployed by much modern literary "dark" humor. There can be no doubt that, in our era, the themes and modes of our comic literature (and our other literature as well) are usually no laughing matter. The subjects are frightful and ugly, the methods of presenta­ tion disruptive; such creations patently seek to foster dis-ease. Never­ theless, this study will argue that critics complaining about our fierce satiric literature because it is dank, cheerless, or unpleasant, naysay­ ing or negative, are too simplistic and prescriptive. Great literature must flower as best it can, choosing whatever myths and means it can best nurture and develop. All such writing, if vigorous, controlled, and imaginative, is definitely creative and thereby affirmative. Furthermore, as this study attempts to show, all of the strategies, tones, and materials of this extremist literature have been assimilated from a long and spirited usage. Such creations are firmly established in a lasting tradition. Hence it would only be sensible to comprehend and appreciate our comedic literature-whether it be dark or light-in this larger context. I wish to thank the editors of several journals for granting me permis­ sion to reprint material here that previously appeared in somewhat different form in the pages of their periodicals: "The Human Use of Inhuman Beings," Humanities in the South 45 (1977): 7-9; "Funny Bones: The Deadly Laughter of the Grotesque," Thalia 9 (1987): 24-31; "Mod­ ern Gothic: The Satiric, Grotesque," Studies in Contemporary Satire 13 (1986): 5-15; "Cynical Hercules and the Contemporary Hero," Classical Bulletin 57 (1981): 65-69; "Neglected Authors: The Martyrs and Relics of Satire," Studies in Contemporary Satire 12 (1985): 6-21; "Chafing Dish: Satire's Adulteration of Language and Style," Thalia 5 (1982): 14-26; "Gaming in Modern Literature: Some Causes and Effects," Modernist Studies 4 (1982): 146-59; "Intrusion, Obstruction, and the Self-Reflexive Narrator in So-Called Post-Modern Literature," Classical and Modern viii Preface Literature 7 (1986): 31-37 (reprinted by permission of CML, Inc.); "The Senselessness of an Ending: Comic Intrusions upon the 'Higher Seri­ ousness,'" West Virginia University Philological Papers 29 (1983): 1-7; " 'Pangs without Birth, and Fruitless Industry': Redundancy in Sat­ ire," Centennial Review 26 (1982): 239-55; " 'Bored Out of My Gourd': The Progress of Modern Exhaustion," West Virginia University Philolog­ ical Papers 28 (1982): 1-15; "Bowl Games: Satire in the Toilet," Modern Language Studies 4 (1974): 43-53; "The Progress of Cannibalism in Sat­ ire," Midwest Quarterly 25 (1984): 174-86; "The Machine Prevails: A Modern Technological Theme," Journal of Popular Culture 12 (1978): 118­ 26; "Running Down and Dropping Out: Entropy in Modern Litera­ ture," Studies in Contemporary Satire 10 (1983): 9-22; "The Death of the Humanities and Other Recent Atrocities," Humanities in the South 52 (1980): 1-4. I also wish to acknowledge Professor Priscilla VanZandt of the University of North Florida, who worked with me on chapter 4. My deepest gratitude goes to Dr. Anna Lydia Motto, my wife, who as­ sisted me in the research, the writing, and the revision of some of these chapters. The Modern Satiric Grotesque And Its Traditions This page intentionally left blank Introduction The literature of the modern era immerses us again and again in dis­ illusionment, anomie, alienation, and wretchedness. Matthew Arnold saw man in 1853 facing what the early Greeks had faced-loss of calm, cheerfulness, and disinterested objectivity. In their stead, "the dia­ logue of the mind with itself has commenced; modern problems have presented themselves; we hear already the doubts, we witness the dis­ couragement, of Hamlet and of Faust."l Oswald Spengler anticipated something worse, predicting the decline of the west, and since Speng­ ler's day, man has been haunted by a nagging sense of absurdity and despair. Max Weber similarly predicted such a disenchantment in the West, and recently a typical commentator affirmed that "the writing of Tonnies, Marx, Whyte, Riesman, Kahler, Perkins, and others attest to the prevalence of that belief-that man has become materialized, au­ tomated, despiritualized, 'disenchanted'-in the twentieth century."2 And, to be truthful, the motifs of the satiric artistry early in this century-in the work of Strindberg, Mayakovsky, Proust, Mann, Joyce, Capek, Sinclair Lewis, Orwell, Huxley, Waugh, Celine, and Nathanael West-have been dark indeed. The typical reified, de­ natured, dispirited inhabitant of our period is precisely characterized by Robert Musil's designation: Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften. Modern man, stripped of any distinguishing qualities, has arrived in the sub­ basement of life. Later writings merely continue to record this down­ ward journey. In such a light, we should perceive the oeuvre of the angry young men, the absurdists of the theater, the novelists of black humor, the celebrants of pop art, and the theorists of deconstruction. Critics too tend to define the entire period in gloomy and tenebrous terms, speaking of the "revolt of the masses" and the "betrayal of the intellectuals," noting the proliferation of the "anti-hero" and generat­ ing a host of the bleakest terms: "the power of blackness," "the loss of self," the "waiting for the end," "nil," "nightmare," and "silence."3 Even many of our lighter comedians have grown increasingly bleak 2 The Modern Satiric Grotesque and depressed toward the close of their careers; this has certainly been true of Dickens, Twain, Chaplin, Thurber, Waugh, and Lenny Bruce. Furthermore, one will find precious little among recurrent literary subjects that one can designate beneficent or ameliorative. For in­ stance, traditional utopian literature has turned "sour," fostering the rise of a predominant genre, that of the antiutopia.4 In addition, liter­ ature's concern with the scatological increases significantly in this cen­ tury, plunging the reader into the urinal and the toilet; many artists of the lavatory-Joyce, Eliot, Golding, Grass, Marcel Duchamp, South­ ern, Barth, Updike, Claes Oldenburg, Beckett-appear eager to rush in where angels fear to tread. Similarly, modern writings startle read­ ers by confronting them with the unsavory subject of cannibalism, as in works by lwain, Bierce, Waugh, Mailer, Burgess, Bellow, Hawkes, and Donleavy; such writers hint knowingly that man, for all his "humane" posturings and asseverations, secretly is prone (perhaps en­ thusiastically) to indulge quite savagely in consuming delectable hu­ man flesh. In like manner, as if they utterly endorsed C.~ Snow's concept of the isolated "two cultures" and indeed endorsed the triumph of sci­ ence alone, numerous modern authors have discerned a grim species of humor in dramatizing the triumph of the machine over mankind. Such writers as E.M. Forster, Zamyatin, Elmer Rice, Capek, Kafka, Barthelme,