ABSTRACT
Between1579and1600,Elizabethan"novelists"likeThomasNashe producedwhatwouldappeartobelittlemorethanrudimentaryexperimentsintheirart,yetmuchofthisprosenarrativeeffectivelyassimilates thegrotesque,asepisode,character,theme,andimage,intoitspatchwork structures.Thecombinationofcrudejokeandterribledetailparticularly accentsthestudiesofroguelife,talesofadventure,andtractsforthe times,eventhoughsuchmomentsofhorrorandfarceareoftenincongruous witheithertheromanticortherealisticcharacteroftheseworks.As HuntingtonBrownpointedoutinhisdiscussionofRabelais,however,the grotesquecanbe,"astrulyastragedy,animitationoflifeintheAristotelian sense."1ItsappearanceinsuchanexperimentalpieceasTheUnfortunate Travellerdeservesthereforeacloserscrutinyastowhetheritistheresult ofcapric(}-amonstrosity,accordingtoMontaigne,whichviolatesright formandisunrelatedtothenon-grotesqueinart:"havingneitherorder, dependencie,orproportionbutcasualandframedbychaunce"2-or, whetherthegrotesqueisaunifyingelementwhich,inthewordsofFrances Barasch,"residesnotonlyinthestructureofthework,butinthewriter's viewoftheworld,infact,inthethemeoftheworkitself."3Beoauseof thewealthofliterarymaterialwithinthisperiodandthecomplicatedhistoryofthegrotesqueinart,thisstudymustnecessarilylimititselftoa cursorylookatafewexemplaryElizabethansandtheirsuggestiveuseof thegrotesqueasprovidingacontextforThomasNashe'sTheUnfortunate Traveller.Thisremarkablepiecewillbeconsideredasaneffectiveand seminalworkinEnglishliteratureforitsconscioususeofthegrotesque asastructuralandthematiccenterwithinthepicaresquenovel.OfparticularconcerninthisexaminationofTheUnfortunateTravelleristhe interrelationshipbetweenthepicaresqueandthegrotesque,foritisthe interactionofculturalimpetusandpersonalvisionwhichresultsinthe
STUDIES IN SHORT FICTION
During the period in which Nashe was writing, the appearance of the grotesque in English prose fiction is generally sporadic and phenomenal. But time and again, the inclusion of these grotesque episodes force their authors, if only for greater exploitation of the sensational, into refining aspects of their narrative art in order to accommodate the different mode. Furthermore, as Robert Greene, Thomas Deloney, Thomas Dekker, and Thomas N ashe devised their presentations of the macabre, the physically deviant and horrible, they were not only catering to popular taste but also revealing the dis-ease of their age, exposing the "reality" of a primitive undercurrent in a growing urban civilization, and reasserting the lines between the natural and the unnatural in human beings and their constructs. Such a juxtaposition of the fabulously contrived edenic villa (which Nashe's Jack Wilton visits in Rome) with the city's famine suggests an interest in the grotesque as it threatens confidence in the integrity and order of nature, and therefore, for most Renaissance writers, as it threatens the basis of art. Yet, as 0. J. Campbell testifies, these "proletariat" writers were also amused by the deplorable .absurdity and outrageous follies they observed in the mad, vicious world they knew.4 Hence, the elusive combination of satire, sadism, and low comedy which results in not just a description of what appears to be grotesque but the reader's combined experience and apprehension of the grotesque moment itself.
