Rethinking the concept of the grotesque
Subtitle: Crashaw, Baudelaire, Magritte
By: Shun-Liang Chao
Series: Studies in comparative literature -- 22; Studies in comparative literature (Oxford, England) -- 22.
Publisher: Legenda
Published: 2010
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 183
ISBN-13: 9781906540821
Subjects: Grotesque in literature; Grotesque; Criticism and interpretation
Description: How are we to define what is grotesque, in art or literature? Since the Renaissance the term has been used for anything from the fantastic to the monstrous, and been associated with many artistic genres, from the Gothic to the danse macabre. Shun-Liang Chao's new study adopts a rigorous approach by establishing contradictory physicality and the notion of metaphor as two keys to the construction of a clear identity of the grotesque. With this approach, Chao explores the imagery of Richard Crashaw, Charles Baudelaire, and Rene Magritte as individual exemplars of the grotesque in the Baroque, Romantic, and Surrealist ages, in order to suggest a lineage of this curious aesthetic and to cast light on the functions of the visual and of the verbal in evoking it.

Legenda is a joint imprint of the Modern Humanities Research Association and Maney Publishing. The series Studies in Comparative Literature ranges widely across comparative and theoretical topics in literary and translation studies, accommodating research at the interface between different artistic media and between the humanities and the sciences. --Book Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [173]-180) and index.