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On the Grotesque: Strategies of Contradiction in Art and Literature

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In this book, Harpham develops his own theory of the grotesque by exploring its history and previous critical works. Since the grotesque is present in many different forms of art it is impossible to present a wholly functional definition. Harpham traces the origins of the grotesque back to our mythic past, as autochthonous mans deal with a reality steeped with myth, in which Nature and Chaos, Will and Logic, Eros and Thanathos, coexist. Harpham applies anthropology, psyhology, religion and literature in his analysis of the essence of the grotesque. The primary references of his own definition are to Leach, Auerbach and Freud. Harpham avoids both the negativity of Kayser and the positivity of Bakhtin that others have related themselves to. Harphams presentation is thorough and interesting and is a logical extention of the traditional views on the grotesque as a dual element of horror/humor. He presents a fresh angle on a difficult subject that has had few serious contributions since Kayser and Bakhtin. This book is an excellent starting point for any study of the theory of the grotesque and should be considered a valuable work in its own right. Harphams own analysis is thoroghly presented and he explores different applications of his theory through the analysis of four literary works: Wuthering Heights, The Masque of the Red Death, Death in Venice and, finally an analysis of Joseph Conrad's works. This also makes it an good tool in further use of the grotesque in other studies.

Consider: "In this comprehensive, original, and wide-ranging study, Geoffrey Galt Harpham argues that we should view the grotesque not as a marginal or aberrant form, but rather as a key to central concepts in the Western artistic tradition." This statement from the product page certainly provides a general summary of "On the Grotesque: Strategies of Contradiction in Art and Literature," but it is just an introduction.

What Harpham does is much more. He traces the history of the grotesque from ancient cave drawings and their possible meanings through the Gothic and Renaissance periods, and then through its use, not only in art criticism, but in the heart of literature, particularly in Bronte, Poe, Mann, Conrad, and O'Connor. This book is a demanding, but rewarding read.

"Faith in 'God' is a faith in the hidden order of apparently disorderly things, the hidden meaning of the apparently meaningless....And this is the final paradox: really to understand the grotesque is to cease to regard it as grotesque" (76). Nabokov wrote of nannons, or misformed, knobby things. But let them look into a funhouse mirror, and the distortion un-distorts the nannons to become beautiful things. Is this why the gargoyle was the form for gutter spouts atop medieval cahedrals--to call our attention to our sinful nature in order that we un-distort ourselves into sinless creatures?

Well, of course becoming sinless is impossible. Thus the grotesque gargoyle, a marginal character in the iconography of cathedral art, is a constant reminder of the paradox of our nature. Think of the sublimity of sex, then visualize how beastly it is in performance. Paradox.

Harpham's thesis is that the grotesque, which originated as a marginal creation, becomes the core in interpreting and understanding what the artist and writer are about. One thing we know about gargoyle art is that they were not scripted. The unknown sculptors simply created these images. However, the mind must have meaning, so it created one: the gargoyles represent our sinful nature. As in Jewish midrash (the interpretation of the white spaces on which black letters are placed), or the marginal and the core, or the mysterious and the obvious, the grotesque must be interpreted, must be given meaning.

The study of the grotesque takes us on a paradigm shift from obvious meaning of intentional art and prose to the confusing, shifting vagaries of meaning of the marginal, which itself becomes the new core of meaning. Picasso's art epitomizes this paradigm shift from realism to the confusing dissection of objects, then re-organizing, re-creating a new subject.

Harpham says that the use of language, particularly English, also is a traveler in paradox and meaning. Joseph Conrad chose to write in English, his third language, because it allowed him to play with words and meanings, context and subcontext, much more than Polish or French. According to Harpham, Conrad's biggest objective was "to make man see," or understand truths, yet he intentionally employed obfuscation in making his meanings.

Thus, language itself has its own grotesqueries and paradoxes. When Kurtz speaks of "the horror, the horror," what does he mean? Is this one horror simply repeated (an old core), or two or more horrors implied (a new paradigm)? (Harpham's application of the grotesque to Heart of Darkness is worth the price of the book.)

Harpham's discussion of Flannery O'Connor's fiction is why I read this book. She is last in the series of authors under study in their use of the grotesque. For O'Connor "her art is an art of the margin marked by constant interpenetration" (185) of one story into another. Her inclusion of the grotesque in her fictions is the art of moral extremes, for within her grotesque characters she buries "the almost imperceptible intrusions of grace" (186). In Wise Blood: A Novel she plants the story of Christ driving demons out of a man and into swine into the make of car called Essex, a name also of a breed of swine. Also Hoover Shoats, another pig reference, is another form of the same story, including our own, that is, referential elements of our sinful nature with possibility of grace attained.

This statement by Harpham essentially summarizes his thesis:
"Meaning is made through connections, by linking something with something else outside itself; it is made by establishing relations both within and outside the text, by ascribing intentionality to things that do not inherently possess it, by seeing elements in contexts other than the ones in which they occur, by seeing one thing as another" (187).

"On the Grotesque" is packed with history, theology, philosophy, literary criticism. A review can hardly do justice to its content and context. For the serious student of language, this is an essential study.