THE TROPE OF “TALKING FOOD” IN HISTORICAL RETROSPECTIVE: FROM MEDIEVAL SONGS OF VAGANTS TO MODERN MEMES

Abstract

The trope of “talking food,” in particular, “talking fried bird,” has a long history, which is traced in this study. The abundance of modern memes with images of dishes, on behalf of which various lines are pronounced, goes back to more ancient images. The study aims to trace the history of the development of the image of the “talking fried bird” from the songs of vagants to modern media discourse. It should be noted that in all cases this image was comic, included lamentations, often memories of cooked food about the times of existence in the form of a bird. The first known text in the history of world literature is apparently “The Song of the Roasted Swan,” included in the collection of medieval poems and songs “Carmina Burana.” The carnivalization of reality, characteristic of the poetry of vagantes, was continued in the twentieth century – the text of “The Song of the Roasted Swan” was included in the cantata by Carl Orff and, according to the hypothesis, influenced both the Soviet humorous culture and indirectly the modern corpus of Internet memes.