Menippean

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English

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Etymology

From Menippus +‎ -ean.

Adjective

Menippean (comparative more Menippean, superlative most Menippean)

  1. Of or relating to the Ancient Greek cynic parodist and polemicist Menippus (3rd century BCE).
  2. (literature) Of or relating to a form of satire, usually in prose, which has a length and structure similar to a novel and is characterized by attacking mental attitudes instead of specific individuals.
    • 1997, Eric McLuhan, The Role of Thunder in Finnegans Wake, University of Toronto Press, page x:
      Without a doubt, the most unusual, the most conspicuous, and the most Menippean feature of the curious verbal landscape of Finnegans Wake is the ten 'thunderclaps.'
    • 2011, Mark Somos, Secularisation and the Leiden Circle, BRILL, page 249:
      The most Menippean of these were written by John Harington of Kelston, who was first banished from court for his 1596 Metamorphosis of Ajax (a satire against the Earl of Leicester and a pun on 'a jakes,' the first flushing toilet in Britain, of Harington's own design), followed by An anatomie of the metamorphosed Ajax, and Ulysses upon Ajax.
    • 2019, Amy L. Friedman, Postcolonial Satire: Indian Fiction and the Reimagining of Menippean Satire‎, Rowman & Littlefield (Lexington Books), page 128:
      Salman Rushdie's new work of 2017, his novel The Golden House, is not just a Menippean satire; it is a novel about Menippean satire.
    • 2021, J. Douglas Canfield, Tricksters and Estates, University Press of Kentucky, unnumbered page:
      However plausible such arguments, I should like respectfully to disagree. My position is closer to that of Dustin Griffin in his recent book—that the ludic is inherent in satire, especially the more menippean kind.

Usage notes

  • In the classical context, the term distinguishes Menippus' style of satire from the earlier style pioneered by Aristophanes, which was based on personal attacks.
  • The term is used by classical grammarians and by philologists mostly to refer to satires in prose (compare Juvenalian).

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