Grotesque and grotesque body as conceptsThe word 'grotesque' derives from the Italian, 'grottesca', originally the adjective of 'grotta ' [cave], referring to the subterranean, cave-like ruins where some of the remnants of this form of art, first only as marginal decorations, have been found (Black 2009:67-68). This is symbolically significant, as these images reflect something repressed in the unconscious cellars of the mind.Based on images of the grotesque body (Bakhtin 1984:315), the other images of the grotesque 1 also stemming from the unconscious have existed since time immemorial. They have included much of teratology, the so-called science of 'monsters' or, more scientifically, the abnormalities of bodily development, including prodigies, in the earliest myths. In Western civilisation during the medieval, Baroque, romantic and Victorian periods the grotesque body has become a separate literary canonical form (Bakhtin 1984:319) where it lies '[a]t the margin of figurative metaphor and literal myth' (Shabot 2015:61).1.'Grotesqueries' have been pointed out in the book of Job by Ingram (2017:58).Job is suffering from illness without understanding it. His impairment and exclusion render him disabled in an abled, gloating but threatened society for which he is the laughing stock despite his exceptional piety. His psychic and spiritual breakthrough comes when God makes him reflect on and in the mirror of the wild and disorderly bodies of the two monstrosities, Behemoth and Leviathan, elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible exemplifying chaos, but now unexpectedly celebrated. Even as possible relief thanks to light-hearted humour these grotesque bodies emancipate the object of body-politics by subverting the centre of certainty and power. In this study the Bakhtinian critique of the 'monologisation' of the human body and its experience promised to be fruitfully combined with psychoanalytic insights about imprisoned body-images to enrich the relevance of the book of Job.
Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications:The interface of biblical hermeneutics and exegesis with other research fields in the social sciences and humanities such as psychoanalytic theory and literary criticism expanded the horizon of insight for all parties involved, not only for biblical studies.
