John Fowles and Menippean Satire
A Menippean Approach to The Magus, Mantissa and A Maggot
Mahinur Akşehir
- 188 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
John Fowles and Menippean Satire
A Menippean Approach to The Magus, Mantissa and A Maggot
Mahinur Akşehir
About This Book
The genre of Menippean satire is very problematic in terms of putting forward an encompassing definition. There has been numerous attempts to propose a final definition and none of these definitions can be considered totally wrong but there has always been a blindspot. The most important reason for this is that most critics have focused on what Menippean satire is. However, due to the genre's liability to change, adapt and digress, in the attempts to propose a definition based on what it is, there has always been a left out. What this study suggests to handle this problem is to change the focus from what the genre is to what it does while attempting to develop a more relevant definition. In this context, what Menippean satire aims to do is simply to highlight the incongruities of humanity through a cynical perspective and to represent these incongruities in a carnival-like universe. Briefly, it is cynical in theme and carnivalesque in form. This study aims to exemplify and examine the genre in the light of this new focus in one of its contemporary representatives, John Fowles.