Grotesque Ebook: requires an access code
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/csusb/reader.action?docID=1207519
Euripides’ Bacchae (Bakkhai) link to the book requires access code
questions
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/csusb/reader.action?docID=430349
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16884/16884-h/16884-h.htm
for question 3 (you need to change the reading to English)
https://digitaldante.columbia.edu/dante/divine-comedy/
for question 4 (only the inferno part)
Edwards and Graulund discuss two distinct types of laughter that are associated with the grotesque – 1) laughter that is regenerative, expressing a sense of social unity; and 2) laughter that is destructive and ridiculing, facilitating a process of marginalization. Using The Bacchae, Ubu Roi, and/or any of the texts we have read this term, provide at least one example of each kind of laughter.
Discuss the grotesque elements incorporated in Euripides Bacchae. How does Euripides complicate the process of epiphany in The Bacchae? What role does disguise play in how the action unfolds? How does this complication relate to Agave’s ecstasy and the ultimate sparagmos of Pentheus toward the end of the play?
One aspect of the carnivalesque that Mikhail Bakhtin discusses is the erasure of the distinction between high and low culture. How would you define each term? Using Ubu Roi or any other texts you have read for the class or elsewhere, explain how the grotesque destabilizes the distinction.
Edwards and Graulund offer the following definition of Julia Kristeva’s concept of the “female abject” – “Neither subject nor object, the abject, or the state of abjection, is articulated in, and through, grotesque language and imagery.” Using this definition, in addition to the concept of the monstrous-feminine, write a response considering how ideologies of gender function alongside the grotesque in characters like Agave and the other Bacchae, Francesca from Dante’s Inferno, Greta and Mrs. Samsa in Kafka’s Metamorphosis, or any other characters we encountered this term.
