Answer ALL of the following using Ginzburg, The Cheese & the Worms pages viii-28; 91-108
- Why and how did Menocchio end up at the stake? Who and what circumstances got him there? Consider both trials and Menocchio’s life in Montreale.
- Ginzburg is quite critical of previous attempts to analyze “popular culture” and define its relationship to elite culture. (xiv-xviii) What does he condemn in the analyses of Mandrou & Bolleme? What does he hate about the“the history of mentalities” (xxiii) and the ‘history of collective psychology?” How do previous approaches fall short for Ginzburg?
- In the Preface, Ginzburg longs for a study of peasants which is “very direct and …free from intermediaries.” (xviii). Has he produced such a study? Do we hear Menocchio without distortion or interference speaking to us from across the centuries? Who are the intermediaries who distort or shape Menocchio’s speech and how do these do so?
- We need to see if Ginzburg & his fellow micro historians live up to their claims for microhistory. Is the Cheese & the Worms “interesting?” Does it focus on the “normal exception?” Does it sufficiently contextualize Menocchio by investigating his family, community & so forth? Does it adequatelyand convincingly connect the micro to the macro?
- The Cheese & the Worms has been the subject of a play but never a film. Why do you think this is the case? Were you to produce a play or a film based on the book, who would you choose to play the lead, that is Menocchio?
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