Carnivalization

Carnivalization is a concept of Mikhail Bakhtin denoting the influence of folk laughter (carnival) culture on literature. Developed in 'Rabelais and His World' (1965), it rests on the analysis of the medieval carnival as a temporary suspension of hierarchies, prohibitions, and privileges — a celebration of the 'world turned inside out.' The carnival worldview is characterized by ambivalence, the 'grotesque body,' the 'material-bodily lower stratum,' crowning-and-uncrowning, the profanation of the sacred, and universal laughter. Literary carnivalization transfers these forms into the text: the mixing of high and low, eccentricity, parody, and renewing laughter. The category is productive for analyzing 'menippea,' Baroque and Renaissance literature, and contemporary prose. In Ukrainian letters, the carnival element is embodied in Ivan Kotliarevsky's 'Aeneid' and the prose of Yuri Andrukhovych.