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5 LINES: How would you define the term GROTESQUE?

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Vocabulary: distortion, transgression, fusion, solidified, caricatures, fodder, surreal

The Grotesque: A Brief Overview of the Literary Term

"The Greengrocer," by Guiseppe Arcimboldo - a fusion of the human and the vegetable.

What is the Grotesque?

In this article I’ll be introducing a brief overview of the concept of the grotesque in literature. My hope is that by the end of this article, you’ll be able to recognize what qualities make something grotesque.

Now, just what is the Grotesque? Most of you will probably think of something disgusting, or terrifying right off the bat. That is not necessarily the case, but is rather just the more modern permutation which the term has undergone. That is not to say that the grotesque is not at times disgusting or frightening, but merely that it is not

necessarily entirely either of those things.

The Grotesque is both an artistic and literary term, and is a bit difficult to describe, as it is less of a solid definition, and more of a range between a number of different qualities. The Grotesque is primarily concerned about the distortion and transgression of boundaries, be they physical boundaries between two objects, or psychological boundaries, or anything in-between. Exaggeration also plays a role.

There are two main ways to define something as Grotesque, as evidenced by the diagrams:

1. The Grotesque fits in between the real and the fantastic (non-real)

2. The Grotesque simultaneously fits somewhere between being funny and being frightening. (This is a bit more difficult to gauge, as what is funny to one person is frightening to another, so maintaining a bit of an open mind is helpful).

Kafka's Metamorphosis involves a man named Gregor Samsa who awakes to find that he has

become a giant insect.

Furthermore, the grotesque often contains a sort of fusion of human with animal, with vegetable, with machine, or some other combination. So, it could be a combination of a man and a dog, or a cat with a carrot, or a bird and a toad.

The simplest example of this that I can provide for you in literature is from the story “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka, which essentially tells the story of a man who wakes up one day to discover that he has been somehow transformed into a person-sized insect.

Nikolai Gogol’s short story “The Nose” is about a man named Ivan who wakes up one day and discovers that his nose has ran away, and is now walking around Russia dressed up as a police officer, which harasses him when he accuses it of running away from him. And which then nearly arrests him.

In some ways, the grotesque can be compared to Tzvetan Todorov’s theory of the fantastic in literature. Todorov argues that the fantastic resides in the “moment of hesitation” between belief and the rejection of the fantastic explanation for an event. Similarly, the grotesque can be defined as a hesitation between horror and comedy, never fully committing to one, and never truly rejecting the other.

Honore Daumier's "Victor Considerant": a man becomes leonine, serpentine, and alien all at once,

while remaining comically exaggerated

.The Grotesque in History

The term originally started visually in the 1500s. The word itself is derived from the Italian “grotto,” for caves, because it was at that point historically that a number of ancient cave paintings were discovered. The art in these paintings had no respect for the mimetic principles of art which were championed at the time; that is to say, these cave paintings were fantastical in nature, and often included mixtures of human and animal creatures. Here is where the modern conception of the grotesque as disgusting originated, as the Italians viewed these paintings with disgust, considering them to be vulgar and comic art.

In the 1600s the term first appeared in literature, particularly in French literature, and solidified the term’s connection to the physical body, as most of these references were applied to body parts.

The term achieved a surge in popularity in the 1800s in England and Germany, where it was used for satire and caricatures. The main reason for this is that the Enlightenment was then underway – the Age of Reason. Thus, anything that was seen as excessive or exaggerated was considered to be comic, opposite to enlightened thought, and thus excellent fodder for mockery. Especially important in this period was Friedrich Schlegel’s 1804 Conversation on Poetry which refers to the “terrifying aspect of humor, the horrifying aspect of comedy,” which has since been accepted as a definition of the grotesque in literature.

In the twentieth century, related literary and visual movements like German Expressionism, Surrealism, Theatre of the Absurd, and Theatre of the Grotesque were influenced by a combination of the comic and the horrific, and so gain a connection to the literary grotesque.

Many grotesque stories are oneiric (dreamlike) and anti-mimetic, such as Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” or Nikolai Gogol’s “The Nose.” Neither of these stories reflect any immediately recognizable reality; rather, they seem nightmarish comic and surreal. As is the case with both of these stories, the grotesque is often rooted heavily in the physical.

Mikhail Bakhtin was another important critic in the development of the literary grotesque, specifically in relation to his discussions of the work of Francois Rabelais. He discussed the concept of excess, specifically in relation to the body and food. He argued that the grotesque specifically exaggerated a negative characteristic. However, unlike pure caricature, he argued that the grotesque did not exaggerate a negative phenomenon for the purposed of rejecting it. Rather than negate that phenomenon, the exaggeration was to uncrown it, remove it from a state of untouchable-ness, so that it could be renewed. This is related to Bakhtin’s concept of the carnivalesque, which reversed the order of the world, making it topsy-turvy – the top becomes the bottom, and the bottom becomes the top, as is the case in a traditional carnival: the king is, for a day, dethroned, and a beggar becomes king for that same day. In the grotesque, however, this concept of reversal is applied to the body; the inside becomes the outside, and the outside becomes the inside.

Other notable works in the grotesque include:

-Edward Lear, whose art and limericks are certainly absurd, but which engage in exaggeration to such a degree to create images at once comic and unsettling. In this sense, his art closes a divide between the grotesque and the uncanny, which can be defined as “that which is fearfully and terribly familiar”.

-Baudelaire’s On the Essence of Laughter, in which he states “The Sage laughs not save in fear and trembling.”

-Edgar Allan Poe, whose work influenced later grotesque writers, most notably H.P. Lovecraft, author of “Herbert West – Reanimator” and “The Dunwich Horror.” Both of these stories lean far on the horrific side of the horror-comedy spectrum, but their melodrama, mixed with their obsession with the body and its convolutions, lands is squarely in the domain of the grotesque.

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5 LINES: If you were to choose a “pseudonym” (alternate name) for yourself, what would it be and why?

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VOCABULARY: era, macabre, insular, tutelage, embark, innuendo

H.H. Munro [pseudonym Saki] (1870-1916), prolific Scottish author of the Edwardian era, often referred to as the master of short stories and compared to O Henry and Dorothy Parker.

The name 'Saki' is Farsi for 'cup-bearer', and is thought to be taken from either the ancient Persian poem The Rubayat of Omar Khayyam or possibly from the New World Saki monkey Pitheciidae, both being referred to in his acerbically witty and sometimes macabre stories.

Hector Hugh Munro was born 18 December, 1870 in Akyab, Burma, son of Scotsman Charles Augustus Munro, an inspector-general in the Burma police and his mother, Mary Frances (née Mercer) who died in a tragic accident in England with a runaway cow in 1872. He had a brother Charles and sister Ethel (who like Hector would never marry).

After the death of Munro's mother, the children were sent to Broadgate Villa, in Pilton village near Barnstaple, North Devon to be raised by aunts who frequently resorted to corporal punishment. It is said that they were most likely models for a few of his characters, notably Sredni Vashtar. Undoubtedly the days of his youth would provide much fodder for his future career. Leading slightly insular lives Munro and his siblings were initially

educated under tutelage of governesses. At the age of 12 young Hector was sent to Pencarwick School in Exmouth and Bedford Grammar School.

In his early 20s, Munro went to Burma in 1893 to join the Colonial Burmese Military Police (an occupation which George Orwell would later pursue as well) until ill-health caused him to return to England a year later. Munro would then embark on his career as a journalist, writing for various publications including the Daily Express, the Bystander, The Morning Post, the Outlook and his Lewis Carroll-esque "Alice in Westminster" political sketches for the Westminster Gazette. He often satirised the then Edwardian society with veiled and cruel innuendo, sometimes bitter and often unconventional.

Munro's first book, a historical treatise called The Rise of the Russian Empirewas released in 1900. His collection of short stories Not-so-Stories came out in 1902.

From 1902 to 1908 Munro worked as a foreign correspondent for The Morning Post in the Balkans, Russia and Paris. He would publish The Chronicles of Clovis (1911) a collection of his short stories and Unbearable Bassington (1912) shortly after. The heartless and cruel Reginald and Clovis are two of his most famous heroes. He deals with the theme of what would happen if the German emperor conquered England in When William Came. (1914) Beasts and Super-Beasts was published the same year.

World War I started and while he was officially too old, at age 44 Munro volunteered as a soldier, enlisting in the 22nd Battalion, Royal Fusiliers. He was offered a commission but refused, saying he could not expect soldiers to obey him if he did not have any experience. He wrote a number of short stories from the trenches and promoted to Lance Sergeant (full Corporal) in September of 1916.

Just a month later, on 16 November 1916, while serving near the French town of Beaumount-Hamel, Hector Hugh Munro was fatally shot by a German sniper's bullet. According to several sources his last words were:"Put that damned cigarette out!" It is alleged that Munro's sister Ethel had destroyed his personal papers.Biography written by C.D. Merriman for Jalic Inc. Copyright Jalic Inc 2005. All Rights Reserved.

Poe's LifeWho is Edgar Allan Poe?

VOCABULARY: versatile, innovator, emulation, quixotic, perpetrating, deteriorating, libelous

The name Poe brings to mind images of murderers and madmen, premature burials, and mysterious women who return from the dead. His works have been in print since 1827 and include such literary classics as “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Raven,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” This versatile writer’s work includes short stories, poetry, a

novel, a textbook, a book of scientific theory, and hundreds of essays and book reviews. He is widely acknowledged as the inventor of the modern detective story and an innovator in the science fiction genre, but he made his living as America’s first great literary critic and theoretician. Poe’s reputation today rests primarily on his tales of terror as well as on his haunting lyric poetry.

Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the Poe of legend.  But much of what we know about Poe is wrong, the product of a biography written by one of his enemies in an attempt to defame the author’s name.

The real Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809.  Edgar was the second of three children. His other brother William Henry Leonard Poe would also become a poet before his early death, and Poe’s sister Rosalie Poe would grow up to teach penmanship at a Richmond girls’ school.  Within three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families. Mr. Allan would rear Poe to be a businessman and a Virginia gentleman, but Poe had dreams of being a writer in emulation of his childhood hero the British poet Lord Byron. Early poetic verses found written

in a young Poe’s handwriting on the backs of Allan’s ledger sheets reveal how little interest Poe had in the tobacco business. By the age of thirteen, Poe had compiled enough poetry to publish a book, but his headmaster advised Allan against allowing this. 

In 1826 Poe left Richmond to attend the University of Virginia, where he excelled in his classes while accumulating considerable debt. The miserly Allan had sent Poe to college with less than a third of the money he needed, and Poe soon took up gambling to raise money to pay his expenses. By the end of his first term Poe was so desperately poor that he burned his furniture to keep warm. 

Humiliated by his poverty and furious with Allan for not providing enough funds in the first place, Poe returned to Richmond and visited the home of his fiancée Elmira Royster, only to discover that she had become engaged to another man in Poe’s absence.   The heartbroken Poe’s last few months in the Allan mansion were punctuated with increasing hostility towards Allan until Poe finally stormed out of the home in a quixotic quest to become a great poet and to find adventure. He accomplished the first objective by publishing his first book Tamerlane when he was only eighteen, and to achieve the second goal he enlisted in the United States Army. Two years later he heard that Frances Allan, the only mother he had ever known, was dying of tuberculosis and wanted to see him before she died. By the time Poe returned to Richmond she had already been buried. Poe and Allan briefly reconciled, and Allan helped Poe gain an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point. 

Before going to West Point, Poe published another volume of poetry. While there, Poe was offended to hear that Allan had remarried without telling him or even inviting him to the ceremony. Poe wrote to Allan detailing all the wrongs Allan had committed against him and threatened to get himself expelled from the academy. After only eight months at West Point Poe was thrown out, but he soon published yet another book.

Broke and alone, Poe turned to Baltimore, his late father’s home, and called upon relatives in the city. One of Poe’s cousins robbed him in the night, but another relative, Poe’s aunt Maria Clemm, became a new mother to him and welcomed him into her home.  Clemm’s daughter Virginia first acted as a courier to carry letters to Poe’s lady loves but soon became the object of his desire. 

While Poe was in Baltimore, Allan died, leaving Poe out of his will, which did, however, provide for an illegitimate child Allan had never seen. By then Poe was living in poverty but had started publishing his short stories, one of which won a contest sponsored by the Saturday Visiter. The connections Poe established through the contest allowed him to publish more stories and to

eventually gain an editorial position at the Southern Literary Messenger in Richmond. It was at this magazine that Poe finally found his life’s work as a magazine writer. 

Within a year Poe helped make the Messenger the most popular magazine in the south with his sensational stories as well as with his scathing book reviews. Poe soon developed a reputation as a fearless critic who not only attacked an author’s work but also insulted the author and the northern literary establishment. Poe targeted some of the most famous writers in the country.  One of his victims was the anthologist and editor Rufus Griswold.

At the age of twenty-seven, Poe brought Maria and Virginia Clemm to Richmond and married his Virginia, who was not yet fourteen. The marriage proved a happy one, and the family is said to have enjoyed singing together at night. Virginia expressed her devotion to her husband in a Valentine poem now in the collection of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, and Poe celebrated the joys of married life in his poem “Eulalie.”

Dissatisfied with his low pay and lack of editorial control at theMessenger, Poe moved to New York City. In the wake of the financial crisis known as the “Panic of 1837,” Poe struggled to find magazine work and wrote his only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. 

After a year in New York, Poe moved to Philadelphia in 1838 and wrote for a number of different magazines. He served as editor of Burton’s and then Graham’s magazines while continuing to sell articles to Alexander’s Weekly Messengerand other journals.  In spite of his growing fame, Poe was still barely able to make a living. For the publication of his first book of short stories, Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, he was only paid with twenty-five free copies of his book. He would soon become a champion for the cause of higher wages for writers as well as for an international copyright law. To change the face of the magazine industry, he proposed starting his own journal, but he failed to find the necessary funding.

In the face of poverty Poe was still able to find solace at home with his wife and mother-in-law, but tragedy struck in 1842 when Poe’s wife contracted tuberculosis, the disease that had already claimed Poe’s mother, brother, and foster mother. 

Always in search of better opportunities, Poe moved to New York again in 1844 and introduced himself to the city by perpetrating a hoax. His “news story” of a balloon trip across the ocean caused a sensation, and the public rushed to read everything about it—until Poe revealed that he had fooled

them all.The January 1845 publication of “The Raven” made Poe a household name. He was now famous enough to draw large crowds to his lectures, and he was beginning to demand better pay for his work. He published two books that year, and briefly lived his dream of running his own magazine when he bought out the owners of the Broadway Journal. The failure of the venture, his wife’s deteriorating health, and rumors spreading about Poe’s relationship with a married woman, drove him out of the city in 1846. At this time he moved to a tiny cottage in the country. It was there, in the winter of 1847 that Virginia died at

the age of twenty-four. Poe was devastated, and was unable to write for months. His critics assumed he would soon be dead. They were right. Poe only lived another two years and spent much of that time traveling from one city to the next giving lectures and finding backers for his latest proposed magazine project to be called The Stylus.

While on lecture tour in Lowell, Massachusetts, Poe met and befriended Nancy Richmond. His idealized and platonic love of her inspired some of his greatest poetry, including “For Annie.” Since she remained married and unattainable, Poe attempted to marry the poetess Sarah Helen Whitman in Providence, but the engagement lasted only about one month. In Richmond he found his first fiancée Elmira Royster Shelton was now a widow, so began to court her again. Before he left Richmond on a trip to Philadelphia he considered himself engaged to her, and her letters from the time imply that she felt the same way. On the way to Philadelphia, Poe stopped in Baltimore and disappeared for five days. 

He was found in the bar room of a public house that was being used as a polling place for an election. The magazine editor Joseph Snodgrass sent Poe to Washington College Hospital, where Poe spent the last days of his life far from home and surrounded by strangers. Neither Poe’s mother-in-law nor his fiancée knew what had become of him until they read about it in the

newspapers. Poe died on October 7, 1849 at the age of forty. The exact cause of Poe’s death remains a mystery.

Days after Poe’s death, his literary rival Rufus Griswold wrote a libelous obituary of the author in a misguided attempt at revenge for some of the offensive things Poe had said and written about him. Griswold followed the obituary with a memoir in which he portrayed Poe as a drunken, womanizing madman with no morals and no friends.  Griswold’s

attacks were meant to cause the public to dismiss Poe and his works, but the biography had exactly the opposite effect and instead drove the sales of Poe’s books higher than they had ever been during the author’s lifetime. Griswold’s distorted image of Poe created the Poe legend that lives to this day while Griswold is only remembered (if at all) as Poe’s first biographer.Poe Museum 1914-16 East Main Street Richmond, VA 23223 © Copyright 2014. All Rights Reserved.

A Dream Within a DreamBY EDGAR ALLAN POE

Take this kiss upon the brow!And, in parting from you now,Thus much let me avow —You are not wrong, who deemThat my days have been a dream;Yet if hope has flown awayIn a night, or in a day,In a vision, or in none,Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seemIs but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roarOf a surf-tormented shore,And I hold within my handGrains of the golden sand —How few! yet how they creepThrough my fingers to the deep,While I weep — while I weep!O God! Can I not graspThem with a tighter clasp?O God! can I not saveOne from the pitiless wave?Is all that we see or seemBut a dream within a dream?

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PROMPT: Collins FCA Paper #7

“A Dream Within a Dream” is one of Poe’s first poems published in his first book called Tamerlane, which he had written by the age of 18. In reviewing the biography on Poe, how can this poem be related to his “quixotic” personality? Use at least one detail from the article and one detail from the poem to support your answer. FCA – Viable and clear answer to the prompt (4 pts.); two examples copied from the readings (4 pts.); each example contains quotation marks, indicating it was copied (2 pts.).

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5 LINES: Without stories, we are all just eating machines with shoes. Interpret this saying:

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http://www.biography.com/people/roald-dahl-9264648/videos/roald-dahl-the-novels-29222467718

Cite This Page - APA Style: Roald Dahl. (2014). The Biography.com website. Retrieved 03:59, Jul 13, 2014, fromhttp://www.biography.com/people/roald-dahl-9264648.

MLA Style: "Roald Dahl." Bio. A&E Television Networks, 2014. Web. 13 July 2014.

Roald Dahl was born on September 13, 1916, in Llandaff, South Wales. In 1953, he published the best-selling story collection Someone Like You and married actress Patricia Neil. He published the popular book James and the Giant Peach in 1961. In 1964, he released another highly successfuly work,Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was later adapted for two films. Over his decades-long writing career, Dahl wrote 19 children's books. He died on November 23, 1990, in Oxford, England.

Early LifeFamed children's author Roald Dahl was born in Llandaff, South Wales, on September 13, 1916. Dahl's parents were Norwegian. As a child, he spent his summer vacations visiting with his grandparents in Oslo. When Dahl was 4 years old, his father died.

The young Dahl received his earliest education at Llandaff Cathedral School. When the principal gave him a harsh beating for playing a practical joke, Dahl's mother decided to enroll her rambunctious and mischievous child at St. Peter's, a British boarding school, as had been her husband's wish. Dahl later transferred to Repton, a private school with a reputation for academic excellence. He resented the rules at Repton; while there, the lively and imaginative youngster was restless and ached for adventure. While Dahl hardly excelled as a student, his mother offered to pay for his tuition at Oxford or Cambridge University when he graduated. Dahl's response, as quoted from his autobiography, Boy: Tales of Childhood, was, "No thank you. I want to go straight from school to work for a company that will send me to wonderful faraway places like Africa or China."

And that he did. After Dahl graduated from Repton in 1932, he went on an expedition to Newfoundland. Afterward, he took a job with the Shell Oil Company in Tanzania, Africa, where he remained until 1939.

Lusting for yet more adventure, in 1939, Dahl joined the Royal Air Force. After training in Nairobi, Kenya, he became a World War II fighter pilot. While serving in the Mediterranean, Dahl crash-landed in Alexandria, Egypt. The plane crash left him with serious injuries to his skull, spine and hip. Following a recovery that included a hip replacement and two spinal surgeries, Dahl was transferred to Washington, D.C., where he became an assistant air attaché.

Early Writing CareerWhile in Washington, D.C., Dahl met with author C.S. Forrester, who encouraged him to start writing. Dahl published his first short story in theSaturday Evening Post. He went on to write stories and articles for other magazines, including The New Yorker. Of his early writing career, Dahl told New York Times book reviewer Willa Petschek, "As I went on the stories became less and less realistic and more fantastic." He went on to describe his foray into writing as a "pure fluke," saying, "Without being asked to, I doubt if I'd ever have thought to do it."

Dahl wrote his first story for children, The Gremlins, in 1942, for Walt Disney. The story wasn't terribly successful, so Dahl went back to writing macabre and mysterious stories geared toward adult readers. He continued in this vein into the 1950s, producing the best-selling story collection Someone Like You in 1953, and Kiss, Kiss in 1959.

Personal LifeThe same year that Someone Like You was published, Dahl married film actress Patricia Neal, who won an Academy Award for her role in Hud in 1961. The marriage lasted three decades and resulted in five children, one of whom tragically died in 1962.

Dahl told his children nightly bedtime stories that inspired his future career as a children's writer. These stories became the basis for some of his most popular kids' books, as his children proved an informative test audience. "Children are ... highly critical. And they lose interest so quickly," he asserted in his New York Times book review interview. " You have to keep things ticking along. And if you think a child is getting bored, you must think up something that jolts it back. Something that tickles. You have to know what children like."

After Neal suffered from multiple brain hemorrhages in the mid-1960s, Dahl stood by her through her long recovery. The couple would eventually divorce in 1983. Soon after, Dahl remarried to Felicity Ann Crosland, his partner until his death in 1990.

Children's BooksDahl first established himself as a children’s writer in 1961, when he published the book James and the Giant Peach. The book met with wide critical and commercial acclaim. Three years later, Dahl published another big winner, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Both books were eventually made into popular movies. A film adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was released as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in 1971, and an originally titled remake of the film, starring Johnny Depp, was released in 2005. The movie version of James and the Giant Peach was released in 1996.

In addition to James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Dahl's most popular kids' books include Fantastic Fox (1970), The Witches (1983) and Matilda (1988).

Despite their popularity, Dahl’s children’s books have been the subject of some controversy, as critics and parents have balked at their portrayal of children’s harsh revenge on adult wrongdoers. In his defense, Dahl claimed that children have a cruder sense of humor than adults, and that he was merely trying to appeal to his readers. Other critics have accused Dahl of portraying a racist stereotype with his Oompa-Loompa characters in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

DeathAfter suffering an unspecified infection, on November 12, 1990, Roald Dahl was admitted to the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, England. He died there on November 23, 1990, at the age of 74. Over his decades-long writing career, Dahl composed 19 children’s books and nine short story collections. He also wrote several television and movie scripts.