Research Article

Carnival and Comedy: on Bakhtin's Misreading of Boccaccio

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Abstract

Bakhtin’s theory of carnival as it is developed in the two seminal studies Rabelais and his World and Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics has impacted on a variety of disciplines. Although essentially literary in conception, it claims a historical underpinning. Bakhtin’s fundamental premise is that carnival, understood as the ‘sum total of all diverse festivities, rituals and forms of a carnival type’, was a historical and cultural phenomenon of incalculable importance for the development of European comic narrative from classical antiquity onwards.

Keywords: comedy, carnival

How to Cite:

Stevens, A., (2007) “Carnival and Comedy: on Bakhtin's Misreading of Boccaccio”, Opticon1826 3(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.5334/opt.030707