Dictionary Definitions

In Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms

“The Grotesque – characterized by the bizarre distortions, especially in the exaggerated or abnormal depiction of human features. The literature of the grotesque involves freakish caricatures of people’s appearance and behaviour, as in novels of Dickens. A disturbingly odd fictional character may also be called a grotesque.” (2001:146)

“Carnivalization – The liberating and subversive influence of popular humor on the literary tradition, according to the theory propounded by the Russian linguist Mikhail Bakhtin […] Bakhtin argued that the overturning of the hierarchies in popular carnival – its mingling of the sacred with the profane, the sublime with the ridiculous – lies behind the most ‘open’ […] literary genres […] Abjectives: carnivalistic or carnivalesque.” (2001:48)

Chris Baldick. Oxford University Press.