The Poetics of Genre

This chapter explores why Bakhtin asserted the Satyrica was proof that “Menippean satire can expand into a … realistic reflection of the socially varied and heteroglot world of contemporary life”—an arguably false assertion containing much truth. For Bakhtin, ancient fiction emerged chiefly under three rubrics: novelistic discourse, space-time (chronotopes) in fiction, and minor novelistic history envisioning Menippea as catalyst. The first two isolate forms specific to ancient fiction, distinguishing dominant types; the final rubric investigates how prose fiction relates to the genres it arises from. Although Bakhtin’s conception of Menippea is not so ahistorical as it sometimes seems when removed from his three-dimensional approach, it is sweeping, idiosyncratic. This chapter begins with Bakhtin’s characterization of Menippea amid accounts specifying what makes it crucial for novelistic discourse; it then asks how Bakhtin sheds light on literary history as a dialogue of genres.