Menippeah

The term Menippeah (Menippeah is a variant spelling of Menippea, referencing the Menippean satire in classical literature and in the literary theories of scholars including Mikhail Bakhtin and Northrop Frye) has been adopted as the name of a literary genre or theory, based on the principles of philosophical aesthetics, semiotics and narratology, developed by Alfred Barkov. What follows is a description of Barkov's theory.

Menippeah is different from the three known classes of fiction: the epics, the lyrics, and the drama. It employs a specific way of narrating widely used even in everyday communication (when irony is intended.) [1]

The characteristics of a Menippeah

• Hidden (biased) narrator.
• Multiple plot contradictions.
• Inconsistency in the style.

There are three different plots within a Menippeah:

• The plot of the narrated false story erroneously taken for the ultimate content.
• The true story, which is to be reconstructed employing the contradictions and seemingly insignificant facts.
• The main plot depicting the Narrator as the main character.

The object of a menippeah is satire, with the hidden narrator as the object of the satire. By comparing the three plots of a menippeah we, indirectly, discover the true character of the narrator.

Examples

• Modern
  • Hamlet: The real narrator is Horatio; he narrates a story that shows him as a friend to all the main characters, who are dead and can't contradict him. His story also hides his guilt in the death of Ophelia.
  • Eugene Onegin: The real narrator is Onegin himself; he changes the story to hide his guilt.^{[citation needed]}
• Ancient satire.
  • Mispogon[2] (Beard-Hater), by Julian the Apostate.
  • Saturae Menippeae, by Varro

See also

• Menippus
• Menippean satire
• Unreliable narrator

External links

• Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita: A Literary Mystification by Alfred Barkov.
• Hamlet: A Tragedy of Errors or the Tragical Fate of William Shakespeare?, English summary of the book by Alfred Barkov.