Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita (1997) -
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Testament of the poet Francois Villon, who in the liveliest verse handed
out
appropriate 'legacies' to all his enemies, thus entering into tradition and
even earning himself a place in the fourth book of Rabelais's Gargantua and
Pantagruel. So, too, Bakhtin says of Rabelais:
In his novel ... he uses the popular-festive system of images with its
charter of freedoms consecrated by many centuries; and he uses it to inflict
a severe punishment upon his foe, the Gothic age ... In this setting of
consecrated rights Rabelais attacks the fundamental dogmas and sacraments,
the holy of holies of medieval ideology.
And he comments further on the broad nature of this tradition:
For thousands of years the people have used these festive comic images
to express their criticism, their deep distrust of official truth, and their
highest hopes and aspirations. Freedom was not so much an exterior right as
it was the inner content of these images. It was the thousand-year-old
language of feariessness, a language with no reservations and omissions,
about the world and about power.
Bulgakov drew on this same source in settling his scores with the
custodians of official literature and official reality.
The novel's form excludes psychological analysis and historical
commentary. Hence the quickness and pungency of Bulgakov's writing. At the
same time, it allows Bulgakov to exploit all the theatricality of its great
scenes -- storms, flight, the attack of vampires, all the antics of the
demons Koroviev and Behemoth, the seance in the Variety theatre, the ball at
Satan's, but also the meeting of Pilate and Yeshua, the crucifixion as
witnessed by Matthew Levi, the murder of Judas in the moonlit garden of
Gethsemane.
Bulgakov's treatment of Gospel figures is the most controversial aspect
of The Master and Margarita and has met with the greatest
incomprehension.