Carnival land: The refined laughter of eutrapelia
This article intends to understand the new meaning attributed to laughter and to Carnival by religious and civil authorities in the seventeenth century, with the object of research being Utopia, a Thomas Morus’s homonymous work, published in 1640 and written by Jakob Bidermann, German Jesuit, theate...
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| Format: | article |
| Status: | Published version |
| Publication Date: | 2017 |
| Country: | Brasil |
| Institution: | Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG) |
| Repository: | Revista de Ciências do Estado (Online) |
| Language: | Portuguese |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:periodicos.ufmg.br:article/5024 |
| Online Access: | https://periodicos.ufmg.br/index.php/revice/article/view/e5024 |
| Access Level: | Open access |
| Keyword: | Thirty-year's war Utopia Topsy-turvy world Carnival Eutrapelia Mundo às avessas Guerra dos trinta anos Carnaval Utopía Mundo al revés Guerra de los treinta años |
| Summary: | This article intends to understand the new meaning attributed to laughter and to Carnival by religious and civil authorities in the seventeenth century, with the object of research being Utopia, a Thomas Morus’s homonymous work, published in 1640 and written by Jakob Bidermann, German Jesuit, theater writer and future Inquisitor of the Catholic Church in Rome. The book recounts the journey of three friends to an imaginary country called Utopia, where the inhabitants celebrate an eternal Carnival, chaos is institutionalized, the rules of culture are suspended, citizens are masked, and drink and eat too much. The travelers experience the terrible consequences of this “topsy-turvy world” and the insecurities of a place that lives immersed in vice, vanity, violence and excesso. In the end, they discover that the real world, when based on Christian virtues and morality, and especially when guided by the Catholic Church, becomes a much more real, tranquil and beautiful place to live. This article also discusses the choice of title and the meaning of “utopia” conceived by the text. |
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