OBSCENE ONOMASTICS IN MEDIEVAL TRICKSTER TALES

Abstract

gi na 16 6 The absurd names of servant figures that I shall be discussing, as well as the frequently cruel and illogical tricks in which they specialize will become clearer if they are studied in the context of the grotesque and anti-social activities of the universal folkloric figure of the trickster, which is their subliterary archetype. According to Jung the trickster, an archetypal psychic structure of extreme antiquity embodies an absolutely undifferentiated consciousness, corresponding to a psyche that has hardly left the animal stage. In his clearest manifestations he is a faithful copy of an absolutely undifferentiated human consciousness, corresponding to a psyche that ahs hardly left the animal level ’ (Jung 200). He is also seen as poised at the crossroads of the secular and the spiritual. He has some of the features of a pagan deity, of an animal, a human being, a hero, and a buffoon, he serves both good and evil, and functions as denier and affirmer, destroyer and creator. He exists purely on the material level, where what most interests him is the

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