Baum, Bakhtin, and Broadway: A Centennial Look at the Carnival of Oz

Abstract

A few years ago, I was invited to speak at the first annual L. Frank Baum/Oz Festival in Aberdeen, South Dakota, where L. Frank Baum and his family lived from 1888-1891. My lecture took place in a circus tent in Wylie Park where I found myself competing with an ice cream social next door and vendors outside selling Oz merchandise such as books, toys, ceramic figurines, and tee-shirts. High school students dressed as characters from Baum's books wandered through the audience, and the town's band was tuning up for a concert. The scene before me conjured up descriptions of the medieval carnival square, the subject of several essays I had read by Mikhail Bakhtin; and, despite the fact that it was hard to make myself heard, I decided that this scene would have pleased Baum, whose stories are filled with chaotic parties and banquets.

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