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Powieść "Mistrz i Małgorzata" łączy elementy fantastyczne z realistycznymi, ale nie jest
połączeniem prozy i wiersza.
"historia miłosna Mistrza i Małgorzaty nie wydaje się pasować do wzorca, podobnie jak
historia Piłata - tak jak jest opowiedziana - nie wydaje się należeć do dzieła menipejskiego."
Podczas gdy zwykłe dzieła menipejskie mają tendencję do bycia epizodycznymi i "postacie w
nich są podnoszone, a następnie porzucane, dla współczesnej literatury - termin
"menipejski" powinien być używany nie w starożytnym sensie kanonu gatunku, ale jedynie
jako wskazanie istoty gatunku, podobnie jak starożytne terminy "epicki", "tragiczny" czy
"idylliczny" mogą być z powodzeniem używane do opisu nowoczesnych dzieł, termin
Bachtina "menipejski" jest pomocny w wyróżnianiu powieści Dostojewskiego spośród
powieści jego współczesnych, takich jak Tołstoj, Turgeniew i Gonczarow.
Satire “A menippean satire - In The Master and Margarita Bulgakov practises the so-called
menippean satire. This kind of satire turns the world completely around. Authorities are
interchanged, fabrications become true, the social order is mixed up. The motives are
grotesque and blusterous. The menippean satire laughs about the socially legitimated
cultural expressions and connects them to the absurd and the abnormal. It's a parody of the
established power, which doesn't mean by definition that it casts off authorities or the
official truth. The characters in the satire experience very different and extreme
psychological situations. It varies from insanity, schizophrenia and interchange of identities
to unrestrained daydreams and an excessive wish for scandals and eccentricity. The satire
questions the dominant cultural order. It is expressed by wiping the floor with the morality,
norms and etiquette of the higher class. In general the official representatives of power are
challenged. This form of satire was inspired by the Greek Anatolian Menippus of Gadara
The most daring and unrestrained fantasy and adventure are [in a
Menippea] motivated and justified by a purely philosophical purpose,
namely, the creation of extraordinary situations in which a philosophical
idea can be provoked and tested... For that purpose, its characters
ascend to heaven and descend to hell, wander to uncharted lands of
fantasy, and are placed in extraordinary life situations. Quite often
the fantastic takes on the character of an adventure story, and at times
it assumes a symbolic or even mystical-religious character. In a sense,
one could say that the adventure of an idea, or of a truth, in the
universe, be it on earth, in hell or on Olympus, constitutes a Menippea's
content.
The above description, says Vulis, fits the genre of The Master and Margarita
"with such precision, as if it were written specifically for its anlaysis or else
used by Bulgakov as an artistic blueprint." "probably," he says, neither was
Bulgakov familiar with Baxtin's Menippean concept, nor did Baxtin read Bul-
gakov's novel. Vulis concludes that
Despite his reference to Dostoevskij, Vulis failed to point out that Baxtin's
Menippean concept was part of Baxtin's theory of Dostoevski's polyphonic
art.
-the creation of an extraordinary situation in which a philosophical idea can be provoked
and tested
Baxtin's warning that,
-
"the love story of the Master and Margarita does not seem to fit the
pattern, nor does the story of Pilate- told as It is- seem to belong in a Menippean
work." Wereas usual Menippean works tend to be episodic and "characters
[in them] are picked up and then dropped,for modern literature---the term "Menippean"
should be used not in the ancientsense of genre canon but merely as an indication of the
essenceof the genre just as the ancient terms "epic, "tragic"
or "idyllic" can be profitably used to describe modern works, Baxtin's term
"Menippean" is helpful in singling out Dostoevskij's novels from among the
novels of his contemporaries, such as Tolstoj, Turgenev, and Gončarov.