Anty-Beatrycze – błazen epoki industrialnej
Anti-Beatrice – the Clown of the Industrial Era

Author(s): Joanna Hobot-Marcinek
Subject(s): Cultural history, Studies of Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: old woman; artist; drunkenness; sexuality; madness
Summary/Abstract: Throughout the centuries, the figure of a mad and drunken old woman (anus ebria et delirans) was a universal phenomenon for the whole European cultural community. The 19th century culture changed the old drunken woman – a figure of ancient origin into naturalistic, repulsive and dirty tramps, mad artists (Camille Claudel, Maria Komornicka) and sexually unsatisfied old shrews. The author of the paper recognizes these 19th century transformations of textual and visual image of a drunken and mad old woman as a consequence of the Enlightenment breakthrough. As a result, the figure of anus ebria et delirans became just a manifestation of human tendency to superstition, an empty sign, a negative reference point for the aesthetics that affirms a statuesque and devoid of repulsive physiological functions body. It was in that period that it lost its primeval association with death, rites of passage, as well as human mythological and religious way of thinking.

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