the fantastic Le Grotesque				1 2
syllabus  unit one unit two unit three Phobia Le Monde à l'Envers La Danse Macabre Le Grotesque Bestiary		The Grotesque:  a powerful esthetic category that disrupts and distorts hierarchical or canonical assumptions. The notion combines ugliness and ornament, the bizarre and the ridiculous, the excessive and the unreal. The term derives from the Italian term for grottos, i.e., the ruins in which ornamental statues of distorted figures were found in the XV and XVIth centuries (grotteschi). The Romantic era, with its interest in individualism, and in all those who before the age of Revolution had been nameless and invisible, made the grotesque its indispensable adjunct. When Victor Hugo said that the grotesque is “the richest source nature can offer art” his penchant for antithesis perhaps never had a more apt example.  M. Bahktin placed the grotesque at the heart of the carnivalesque spirit. In the realm of the fantastic, it is a powerful weapon used in the revelation and denunciation of constructs.    agrippa pantagruel manduce
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