Abstract:

The genre of Menippean satire is very problematic in terms of the existence of fixed definition. Numerous attempts to propose a final definition have ended up having a blindspot. The most important reason for this is that most critics have focused on what Menippean satire is. However, due to the genre’s liability to change, adapt and digress, in the attempts to propose a definition based on what it is, there has always been a left out. So the focus should rather be what it does. In this context, what Menippean satire aims to do is simply to highlight the incongruities of humanity through a cynical perspective and to represent these incongruities in a carnival-like universe. Briefly, it is cynical in theme and carnivalesque in form. This study aims to exemplify and examine the genre in the light of this new focus in one of its contemporary representatives, namely, John Fowles. His perspective towards the world, the way he uses literary tools and techniques, and the references he makes to other Menippean satirists enables one to consider him as a literary figure in the line of the Menippean tradition. He is a unique practitioner of the Menippean genre who not only employs the core characteristics of the tradition but also contributes to the evolution of the genre by using certain Menippean devices in his own unique way in The Magus.

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