Origins
The blurred etymological origin of chie-en-lit / chienlit was the medieval carnival/masquerade when peasants and artisans had one day per year to celebrate, to abandon all work and chores, to abandon contemporary mores and conventions, to crap in bed. Somebody would be chosen as king for a day, and even the lord of the manor sometimes joined in, enduring ritual humiliation, such as being led through the streets like a servant, or slave, or dog.
The first known appearance of the term is in the 16th century novel The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel by François Rabelais. and it was used by Émile Zola in both Nana (1880), and L'Assommoir (1887).
Read more about this topic: Chienlit
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“Grown onto every inch of plate, except
Where the hinges let it move, were living things,
Barnacles, mussels, water weeds—and one
Blue bit of polished glass, glued there by time:
The origins of art.”
—Howard Moss (b. 1922)