Misshaping by Words. Literary Caricature between Texts, Images, and Mental Models

Project Information

MISWORD

Grant agreement ID: 703235

DOI

10.3030/703235

Project closed

EC signature date 25 February 2016

Start date 1 February 2017

End date 31 January 2019

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 183 454,80

EU contribution

€ 183 454,80

Coordinated by

QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - MISWORD (Misshaping by Words. Literary Caricature between Texts, Images, and Mental Models)

Reporting period: 2017-02-01 to 2019-01-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The problem at the heart of the project was the study, definition and analysis of a historical-artistic phenomenon called “literary caricature”, never analysed by critics before and never interpreted as an autonomous concept and fully legitimate mode of expression. By literary caricature is defined the deformed, distorted, comic-grotesque representation of the human body used within literary works for critical and satirical purposes. The research was therefore aimed at identifying portions of literary texts that could be analyzed as a verbal analogous of the visual caricature.
More specifically, the work carried out during the project has moved along three main lines, considered simultaneously: i) the mapping of some significant occurrences of this phenomenon, aimed at demonstrating its existence and describing its original stylistic features; ii) the reconstruction of its historical evolution in relation to the birth and development of visual caricature; iii) the construction of a theoretical framework including the history of representation and interpretation of the human body, and the most recent discoveries on the perception of the human figure and its cognitive and emotional implications.
The study of “literary caricature” is connected to several general questions of considerable importance for society and contributes to reconsidering some cultural and political issues decisive for the present, and in particular: i) the study of the history of the body and its different semiotic and philosophical interpretations; ii) the reflection on satire and freedom of expression; iii) the dialogue and interaction between humanistic culture and scientific culture.
Consistent with the need to address the problems mentioned, the research was pivoted on three main objectives: i) the design of an anthology of literary caricatures, with examples that would testify to their presence and evolution over time, from the Renaissance to the twentieth century: ii) a theoretical study of the origins of literary caricature, and its stylistic, rhetorical, and cognitive functioning, enabled by the conception and application of a transdisciplinary methodology; iii) a specific focus dedicated to twentieth-century literature, with particular attention to the meanings that literary caricature takes on in literary works describing Fascist Italy, and with a detailed interpretation of caricature as a “symptom” of a psychic and emotional reaction to the constraints of the regime.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The work of the project was structured in three work-packages developed simultaneously: i) definition of the literary and figurative corpus to be analysed; ii) definition of the theoretical and methodological framework of reference; iii) definition of the historical and chronological evolution of literary caricature, starting from the preliminary identification of five chronological macro-areas: the Renaissance, the seventeenth century and the Baroque period, the eighteenth century and the turning point of the Enlightenment, the nineteenth century and Romanticism, the twentieth century.
The research produced five different types of results: the creation of a website, the publication of four academic articles, the publication of a book and a series of articles devoted to the popularization of the research’s contents, the integration of other researches already underway, the submission of a book proposal, accepted by a prestigious Italian publisher, that is the final outcome of the research and summarises its overall results. See part B of the report for a detailed list of the scientific results and to read the submitted and accepted book proposal.
The results of the research, its discoveries and theoretical and methodological advances have been repeatedly presented to the scientific community and discussed in a series of international conferences, seminars, and other dissemination opportunities. Some of the research content has also been adapted to be presented to a general audience in a series of public engagement activities. See part B of the report for a detailed list of the dissemination activities.
The results of the project were also exploited, presented and discussed through the scientific design, organization and conveying of the conference «Mis-Shapings: The Art of Deformation and the History Emotions» (September 13, Queen Mary University of London), where I presented the paper Physiognomy Unchained. Caricature as Emotional Intelligence. See the programme of the conference on the project website for a full presentation of the speakers and their papers: https://blogs.history.qmul.ac.uk/litcaricature/2018/07/19/mis-shapings/

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The research has contributed to a series of advances that have updated and exceeded the state of the art in the field of literary studies, studies of the relationship between verbal and visual languages, and in the field of literary theory. In particular, the research introduced the concept of “literary caricature”, thus enriching literary studies with the knowledge of a phenomenon that had so far been ignored by critics, under-analysed or misinterpreted. The reconstruction of the presence of verbal caricatures in the history of Italian literature, the identification of their historical evolution and of their stylistic and rhetorical characteristics have contributed to a re-reading of literary history and have opened the possibility of a new interpretation of some of the crucial texts of Italian literature. The study of the historical and morphological relationships between visual and verbal caricatures has allowed me to reconsider the relationships between figurative arts and literature, and to build new bases for the evaluation of cognitive and aesthetic assumptions that make possible the overlap and interaction between visual codes and verbal codes. The assumption of a theoretical framework in which the conception and reception of caricature is explained through scientific descriptions of the perceptual and cognitive mechanisms of the human mind has contributed to the debate on the possibility of constructing a literary theory based on the interaction between humanistic studies and scientific research, capable of investigating the mutual enhancement of the elaboration and reception of artistic creations and biological-cognitive processes. The study of caricature as a symptom and trace of a collective psychological and emotional reaction to a given historical and political context has made it possible to identify a link, hitherto unexplored and underestimated by literary studies, between literature and the history of emotions; in addition, the research has laid the foundations for the construction of a methodology for the study of literature as a source for the history of emotions, and of the history of emotions as a horizon for understanding literature.

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