Menippeah
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Menippeah is a new literary genre or theory, based on the principles of philosophical aesthetics, semiotics and narratology. Alfred Barkov has developed this literary theory:
Menippeah is different from the three known classes of fiction: the epics, the lyrics, and the drama. It employs a specific way of narrating widely used even in everyday communication (when irony is intended.) [1]
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[edit] The characteristics of a Menippeah
- Hidden (biased) narrator.
- Multiple plot contradictions.
- Inconsistency in the style.
There are three different plots within a Menippeah:
- The plot of the narrated false story erroneously taken for the ultimate content.
- The true story, which is to be reconstructed employing the contradictions and seemingly insignificant facts.
- The main plot depicting the Narrator as the main character.
The object of a menippeah is satire, with the hidden narrator as the object of the satire. By comparing the three plots of a menippeah we, indirectly, discover the true character of the narrator.
[edit] Examples
- Modern
- Hamlet: The real narrator is Horatio; he narrates a story that shows him as a friend to all the main characters, who are dead and can't contradict him. His story also hides his guilt in the death of Ophelia.
- Eugene Onegin: The real narrator is Onegin himself; he changes the story to hide his guilt.
- Ancient satire.
- Mispogon[2] (Beard-Hater), by Julian the Apostate.
- Saturae Menippeae, by Varro
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- The Promenades with Eugene Onegin by Alfred Barkov.
- Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita: A Literary Mystification by Alfred Barkov.
- Hamlet: A Tragedy of Errors or the Tragical Fate of William Shakespeare?, English summary of the book by Alfred Barkov.
