ABSTRACT
The three passages offered above and the discussion of them reflect, necessarily, a contemporary understanding of the grotesque. I have tried to keep to examples of and notions about the grotesque on which there is general agreement among modern writers on the subject, although this is not easy. But a discussion of the grotesque cannot afford to ignore the historical development of the word ‘grotesque’ and its usage, and the various previous concepts of what is meant by the term, particularly as some of these older notions are still accepted (rightly or wrongly). The application of the term in the eighteenth century is likely to be markedly different from its use in the nineteenth, and both can be expected to be different from our present usage. These past uses of the word, however, can be extremely helpful in reaching our own understanding of the grotesque, even if we decline to take them over in toto. It is even possible to gain valuable insights into our subject from earlier conceptions which we completely reject. Accordingly, it will prove helpful to suspend at this point our consideration of the three examples presented in order to trace briefly the development of the word and concept ‘grotesque’.
