We have so far considered laughter as something uniform as far as intensity is concerned; even though it has gradations that go from a weak smile to loud, unrestrained guffaws. We have also indicated a certain restraint in the means used to create comicality. In discussing Gogol, it became clear that one of the manifestations of his mastery of the comic consists in his restraint, that is, his sense of proportion. The awareness of limits – a certain measure of proportion within which a phenomenon can be perceived as comical, and whose violation halts laughter – is an achievement both in world culture and in literature, but has not always been valued.
The presence of some limits appeals to us now; yet it was an absence of limits that appealed to people in the past, who surrendered themselves to what was usually considered unacceptable (and forbidden) loud laughter. It is very easy to condemn such laughter and to regard it with contempt. In bourgeois aesthetics this laughter is referred to as the ‘lowest’ form, as the laughter of the vulgar masses; it involves buffoon shows, folk festivities, and other public amusements. During Russian Eastertide and the carnival in Western Europe, people indulged in unrestrained gluttony and drinking as well as in all sorts of rejoicing, which was expected, and people laughed a lot without restraint. The carnival appeared in Western European literature very early, and Rabelais was its greatest chronicler. These festivities were not reflected in Russian medieval literature since its external forms were fundamentally clerical. Rabelais’ true interest was unrestrained carnival laughter, which is not always perceived positively nowadays, even though the concern of scholars should be not merely evaluation but primarily explanation and understanding. In Bakhtin’s terms, laughter accompanied by unrestrained gluttony and other kinds of dissipation can be called Rabelaisian.
As a society, we disapprove of gluttony, therefore Rabelaisian laughter can seem alien to us. This disapproval is not only psychological but also social. It is typical of the class of people who know what it is to eat well but have never lived through terrible and lengthy starvation and malnutrition, such as that experienced by peasants in all European countries, especially in the Middle Ages and the centuries that followed. For them, to eat and drink one’s fill to the point of bursting, without any restrictions or limits, is not reprehensible; on the contrary, it is a great blessing. People indulged in this kind of gluttony collectively in public during major festivities, which were accompanied by loud and exuberant laughter. This was not ridiculing satirical laughter, but rather a completely different kind, a loud, healthy, carnival laughter of satisfaction. Not a single theory of the comic from Aristotle up to modern lectures on aesthetics can account for this type of laughter, which expresses the animalistic joy in the physiological aspects of existence. It is not by chance that people indulged in such rejoicing only during certain periods, mainly the winter solstice and Eastertide. It was a remnant of early agricultural ritual festivities, analysed in the previous chapter, which were presumed to help the earth awaken to a new life and become fertile again.
In the early Middle Ages, the New Year was celebrated on the day of the spring equinox. Later it was shifted to September, and after that to January. March festive rejoicing was timed to Eastertide in Russia and to the carnival in Western Europe. This is the origin of the universal custom of unrestrained gluttony before Lent, and it should be added that there was once a belief that ‘whatever you do on New Year’s Day you will do throughout the year.’ This is the so-called ‘magic of the first day’ that John Chrysostom1 in Byzantium opposed as mere superstition. According to him, Christians ‘believe that if they spend the new moon of this month (January) content and merry the whole year will be like this for them.’ This belief was forgotten long ago, though the customs associated with it survive because they meet people’s needs.
In his book on Rabelais, Bakhtin has argued persuasively that the author’s characters as well as the style and content of his works are rooted in folk festivities where people indulged in unrestrained rejoicing. Nevertheless, gluttony is not the only aspect of Rabelaisian laughter that is based on folklore. Comicality characterized by a certain degree of obscenity was mentioned above. Indeed, things that are only implied in the works of classic Russian literature are displayed openly in folklore, in Rabelais, and in some works of European medieval literature. Furthermore, they are emphasized and deliberately exaggerated. Some categories of folktales will never be published openly, for example, the Zavetnye skazki [secret folktales], some of which appeared anonymously in Switzerland, edited by Afanasyev. In Danilov’s2 famous collection, some jokes from the repertory of Russian minstrels-cum-clowns will never be published. Specialists have read them in manuscript, but a scientific publication has never been put on the market. Belinsky knew these jokes because he heard them recited orally, and he mentions them in his letter to Gogol from Salzbrunn: ‘About whom would the Russian people tell an obscene tale? About a priest, the priest’s wife, the priest’s daughter and the priest’s workman’ (1953–56, X:215).
People indulged in revelry during folk holidays, at Christmastide, at Eastertide, on Whitsun, on Midsummer Night. The freedom permitted during those periods had the same ritual-magic origin as intemperance in eating. People believed that intensified sexual activity stimulated the earth’s fertility, because the earth was considered to be a mother giving birth to a child, and ploughing and sowing were associated with the conception of living beings. This has been confirmed in ethnography and need not be raised again here. One line of development stretches from the Dionysias and Saturnalias of antiquity to European folk festivities that still exist in some places. Revelry is accompanied by laughter and rejoicing, which are thought also to have a magic influence on nature; the earth blossoms because of these. Such laughter is also found in Rabelais. Bakhtin (1965, 48) wrote: ‘The exclusive prevalence of bodily life is usually noted in Rabelais’ work: images of the body itself, of eating, drinking, defecating, copulating.’
Now we know why this occurs, but the origin of this type of laughter does not explain its durability and its long life in popular culture. Its historical and ethnographic bases were forgotten long ago, and the festivities remained not because they were thought to influence the harvest but because they provided an outlet for rejoicing and joie de vivre. There were other reasons also why those festivities continued to be popular for such a long time. Festive revelry and laughter were to a certain extent protests against the oppressive ascetic morals and lack of freedom imposed by the church and the entire social structure of the feudal Middle Ages. It is not by accident that similar folktales in Russian folklore were told mainly about priests, as Belinsky stated. Bakhtin wrote:
The immense world of the forms and manifestations of laughter was opposed to the official serious feudal medieval culture dominated by the church. (1965, 92)
The laughter that was banished from the official cult and ideology in the Middle Ages found an informal and almost legal refuge for itself under the roof of each festival.
People understood that no violence was hidden behind laughter, that it did not light the fires of the Inquisition, that hypocrisy and deceit never laughed but donned a serious mask, that it does not create doctrines and it cannot be authoritarian, that it signifies not fear but strength […] Therefore they spontaneously gave no credence to seriousness and trusted festive laughter. (107)
All of these phenomena baffled bourgeois aestheticians, who treated them with contempt but could not explain them. Volkelt attempted to do so by stating that when we laugh at an obscenity, we purge our animal nature. This statement is obviously based on Aristotle’s theory of catharsis – a purge, a lessening of the tension – by which he explains the influence of tragedy on us. Here, catharsis is applied mechanically to the comic.
We have attempted to explain all the types of the comic that are focused on the human body. We have also analysed comic exaggeration, that is, hyperbole, which has deep ritual roots when applied to the physiology of human life. In some classes of society, during certain historical periods, hyperbole has strengthened laughter when applied to physiological phenomena, kindling in man a joy of corporeal existence. Among other classes, physiological exaggeration is not conducive to laughter.