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THE ?UPSIDE-DOWN? WORLD AS AN EXPRESSION OF THE MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE CARNIVAL CULTURE

V. Jakubovska, I. Liashchynskaya

Abstract

Medieval towns lived in carnival life. It was opposed to the official culture, its norms and rules which were stable, given and serious in their restrictive and rigid form. The ritual and mimetic forms of laughter culture included carnival-style celebrations and laughter ceremonies. They represented different aspects of life from the official ceremonies. Carnivals were a real, though, a temporary form of life that was meant for enjoying. The carnival became a living space with specific rules. It was characterised by freedom, the infinite space and time and was based on the principle of constant renewal. Another important element of it was the fact that all hierarchy among people was ruined. All people were considered to be equal and their relationships were familiar. Laughter had a ritual character, it expressed joy from being, it was festive, all-folk, universal and ambivalent. The Church not only tolerated these activities, but often took part in them. We talk about the so-called sacred parody (parody sacra), which includes parodic liturgies, hymns, psalms, parodies and transvestitions, disputes and familiar street-language speech, which related to the ignorance of social barriers and to informal relationships among people. These were the expressions of life that were traditionally perceived as animal, and therefore, they were aesthetically rejected. Bachtin, however, rated them high as the manifestations of joyful vitality of the medieval and Renaissance man.

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