Burlesque

Burlesque (pronounced ber-lesk)

(1) An artistic composition, especially literary or dramatic, that, for the sake of laughter, vulgarizes lofty material or treats ordinary material with mock dignity.

(2) A humorous and provocative (often bawdy) stage show featuring slapstick humor, comic skits and a scantily clad female chorus; by the late nineteenth century striptease was often the main element (the usual slang was burleycue).

(3) As neo-burlesque, a late twentieth century revival (with rather more artistic gloss) of the strip-tease shows of the 1920s.

(4) An artistic work (especially literary or dramatic), satirizing a subject by caricaturing it.

(5) Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, a play parodying some contemporary dramatic fashion or event.

(6) A production of some kind involving ludicrous or mocking treatment of a solemn subject; an absurdist imitation or caricature.

(7) Of, relating to, or characteristic of a burlesque; of, relating to, or like stage-show burlesque.

(8) To represent or imitate (a person or thing) in a ludicrous way; caricature.

(9) To make ridiculous by mocking representation.

(10) To in some way use a certain type of caricature.

1650–1660: From the French burlesque, from the Italian burlesco (ludicrous and used in the sense of “parodic”), the construct being burl(a) (joke, fun, mockery) + -esco (the adjectival suffix used in English as –esque).  The Italian burla may ultimately be from the Late Latin burra (trifle, nonsense (and literally “flock of wool”) and thus used to suggest something “fluffy” (in the sense of being “lightweight” rather than serious) which was of unknown origin.  Alternatively, some etymologists suggest burla may be from the Spanish burladero (the protective barrier behind which people in the bullring are protected from the bull).  The verb burlesque (make ridiculous by mocking representation) came directly from the noun and was in use by the 1670s.  The spelling burlesk is archaic.  While the derived form unburlesqued means simply “not burlesqued”, preburlesque is a historian's term meaning “prior to the introduction of burlesque performances”.  Burlesque, burlesquer & burlesqueness are nouns, burlesqued & burlesquing are verbs and burlesquely is an adverb; the noun plural is burlesques.

The original mid-sixteenth century meaning was related to stage performances and meant “a piece composed in the burlesque style, a derisive imitation or grotesque parody, a specific development from the slightly earlier adjectival sense of “odd or grotesque”, taken directly from the French burlesque.  The more familiar adjectival meaning (tending to excite laughter by ludicrous contrast between the subject and the manner of treating it) was in use by at least the late 1690s.  As a definition that’s fine but in the hands of playwrights, satirists and such there was obviously much scope, prompting one journalist (a breed which seems first to have been described thus in the 1680s) in 1711 to clarify things in a London periodical:

“The two great branches of ridicule in writing are comedy and burlesque. The first ridicules persons by drawing them in their proper characters; the other, by drawing them quite unlike themselves. Burlesque is therefore of two kinds; the first represents mean persons in accoutrements of heroes, the other describes great persons acting and speaking like the basest among the people.”

The meaning shifted as what appeared on stage evolved and by the 1880s the typical understanding was something like (1) “travesties on the classics and satires on accepted ideas” and (2) comic opera which tended towards vulgarity.  From this came the still prevalent modern sense of “variety show featuring music, dancing and striptease” although some historians of the industry link this use directly from the mid-nineteenth century tradition of “scantily-clad performers who staged the sketches concluding minstrel shows”.  The implications of that evolution didn’t impress all and by the early twentieth century, in the US, the word “burlesque” had become verbal shorthand for “entertainment designed to titillate, verging on the obscene while avoiding prosecution”.  The term “neo-burlesque” (a revived form of traditional American burlesque performance, involving dance, striptease, dramatic performance etc) emerged in the 1990s, describing the stage shows which sought to re-capture the once respectable spirit of burlesque as it was performed in US clubs before “changing attitudes” saw the performances outlawed or marginalized.  Whether attitudes really much changed among the general population has been debated by historians but the US political system then (as now) operated in a way in which well-funded groups could exert a disproportionate influence on public policy and while this often was used by sectional interests to gain financial advantage, some also decided to impose on others their view of morality; it was in the era of the crackdown on burlesque shows the Motion Picture Production Code (the so-called “Hays Code” which, remarkably, endured, at least on paper, until 1968!) was created as a set of “moral guidelines” with which the Hollywood studios had to conform.  So the “culture wars” are nothing new and in the US, there has always been a tension between puritan religiosity and political freedom, the two forces reflecting the concerns and obsessions of those from the “Old World” of Europe who in the early seventeenth century founded the settlement which ultimate became what came to be known as “America”.

Although often hardly “respectable” theatre, burlesque has a long tradition in performance and almost its techniques will long pre-date recorded history.  The essence of the form was based on an exaggerated “sending up” or a derisive imitation of a literary or musical work and can be anything from a friendly joke to vicious ridicule.  Historically most associated with some form of stage entertainment, burlesque was distinguished from parody in being usually stronger (though not always broader) in tone and style and often lacked the edgy subtlety of satire.   It was the Athenian playwright of Ancient Greece, Aristophanes (circa 446–386 BC), who the late Medieval scribes declared “the father of comedy” and while that was a little misleading, he would occasionally use the device of burlesque in his plays though the satyr plays probably were the first institutionalized form of burlesque.

Empire Burlesque (1985) by Bob Dylan (b 1941).

Early in his long career, Bob Dylan must have noticed the press seemed to be more interested in discussing the stuff about which he didn’t comment that that which he’d taken the time to explain.  Whether or not that’s a factor, Dylan appears never to have explained the meaning behind the title of his 1985 album, Empire Burlesque.  Although some speculated it may have been a metaphor for the nature of “the American Empire” (however defined), there’s nothing substantive to support the speculation and a more grounded theory came from the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) who recounted how Dylan had once told him: “That was the name of a burlesque club I used to go to when I first came to New York, down on Delancey Street.”  Ginsberg thought it “a good title” for an album.

Intriguingly, the satyr play was a kind of coda.  In Greek theatre, the convention was to present four plays in succession: three tragedies (though not necessarily a trilogy) with a satyr play appended as the final piece.  Typically, in a satyr play, a mythical hero (who may have appeared in one or all of the foregoing tragedies) was presented as a ridiculous personage with a chorus of satyrs (creatures half man and half goat (or half horse) with prominent, erect phalluses (it was satyr imagery which in Europe made the goat a symbol of lust and, two millennia on, cynical Berliners would refer to the notoriously philandering Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1975; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945) as “the he-goat of Berlin”)).  As far as is known, the satyr plays almost always were ribald in speech and action as well as in costume and their purpose has been debated by historians.  While classical Greek tragedy is almost wholly devoid of comedy (in the sense of set-pieces although there’s the occasional sardonic quip or grim observation that would have enticed a laconic guffaw) the satyr play concluding the tetralogy would have worked as a sort of palliative burlesque after the catharsis of three acts of fear, loathing and, not infrequently, death,  Their dramatic function clearly was a form of comic relief but coming immediately after three works of earnest high-seriousness, they must have has the effect of “calming the senses” of the audience after the intense, exalting spiritual experience of the tragedies.  That’s interesting in that it implies it was thought desirable to return the audience to “earthly life” and remind them what they had just experienced was not “reality” and their emotions had just been manipulated by a technique.  It all sounds rather post-modern and in a similar literary vein, the “clowning interludes” in Elizabethan plays can also be seen as a type of burlesque; in William Shakespeare’s (1564–1616) A Midsummer Night's Dream (1590) the interpolation of the play of Pyramus and Thisbe performed by Bottom and his companions was the bard making fun of the “Interludes” of earlier types.

An expanded vista derailing the Pronomos Vase (red-figure pottery Ancient Greece, circa 400 BC) believed to depict the whole cast and chorus of a satyr play, along with the playwright, the musician Pronomos, and the gods Dionysos and Ariadne.  The scene is thought to capture the figures after a performance which, in modern use, would be thought a “behind the scenes” grab.   The vase was discovered in 1835 in a tomb in Ruvo di Puglia, Italy; it’s now on permanent display in the Museo Nazionale in Naples.

To make things difficult for students, there are linguistic traps in the terminology and despite the similarity in the spelling, there was no connection whatever between satyric drama and satire and some seem convinced there may have been none between it and Greek comedy.  For structuralists, it can be a difficult field to study because over the centuries so many contradictory texts and commentaries emerged and that’s at least partly attributable to the influence of Aristotle (384-322 BC) who looms over the understanding of Greek theatre because his writings came to be so revered by the scholars of the late Medieval period and especially the Renaissance.  As far as in known, the Greeks were the first of the tragedians and it’s through the surviving texts of Aristotle that later understandings were filtered but all of his conclusions were based only on the tragedies and such was his historic and intellectual authority that for centuries his theories came to be misapplied and misused, either by mapping them on to all forms of tragedy or using them as exclusionary, dismissing from the canon those works which couldn’t be made to fit his descriptions.

The Pronomos Vase as displayed in Naples.

Nor was burlesque confined to drama; it was the most common structure used in the mock-heroic poem to ridicule the often overblown works of romance, chivalry and Puritanism.  Dripping often with irony and a confected grave decorum, the classic example is English poet & satirist Alexander Pope’s (1688-1744) The Rape of the Lock (1712), cited by some (however unconvincingly) as the spiritual origin of “high camp”.  Also, because the gothic novel often was written in such self-conscious “high style”, the form lent itself naturally to burlesque re-tellings, something exploited to this day in Hollywood which has often made sequels to horror films in comedic from.  The burlesque (in the sense it was a descendent of the Greek satyr play) could also be positioned as something transgressive although it must be wondered if this sometimes was a product more of the commentator’s view than the positionality intended by the author.  This aspect of burlesque is explored in the genre of literary carnival when a technique is borrowed from the Socratic dialogues (in which what appears to be logic is deconstructed and proved to be illogical).  Carnivalesque elements are inherent in burlesque (and can exist in satire, farce, parody and such) and a theory of Russian philosopher & literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975) was that in its disruption of authority and implication of possible alternatives, carnival in literature was subversive and the use of burlesque in the form was a concealment (in the sense of avoiding the censor’s pen) of what could be a liberating influence; Bakhtin’s particular target was the “suffocatingly sacred word” in Renaissance culture but his theory has more generally been applied.

The noun amphigory (burlesque nonsense writing or verse) dates from 1809 and was from the eighteenth century French amphigouri of unknown origin but presumed by most etymologists to have been a jocular coining although there may have been some influence from the New Latin amphi-, from the Ancient Greek ἀμφί (amphí) (on both sides) and the Greek γύρος (gýros), derived from the “turning of the meat on a spit” (as a calque of Turkish döner into Greek).  The notion was of “making the whole” (ie “circle on both sides”) but a link with the Greek -agoria (speech) (as in allegory, category) has been suggested as a simpler explanation.  The word “amphigory” found a niche in literary criticism and academic use (recommended for students wishing to impress the professor) to describe a particular flavour of burlesque or parody, especially a verse or other text in which the impression is for a while sustained of something which will make sense but ultimately fails, an oft-cited example being Nephelidia (literally “cloudlets”) by the English poet Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) in which the writer parodies his own distinctive style.

In A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926), Henry Fowler (1858–1933) noted the wide application of the words often listed as synonymous with burlesque (caricature, parody, travesty etc), citing the not uncommon use of burlesque to describe a “badly conducted trial” or “a perverted institution”, adding the two critical distinctions were (1) burlesque, caricature & parody have, besides their wider uses, each a special province; action or acting is burlesqued, form and features are caricatured and verbal expression is parodied and (2) travesty differs from the others both in having no special providence and, in being more used than they (though all four may be used either way) when the imitation is intended to be or pass for an exact one but fails.  Were Henry Fowler alive to see TikTok and such, he’d realize not many are reading his book.

Pink Purple HD Lip Paint (Burlesque) by MBACosmetics.  Burlesque's ingredients includes: Castor Oil, Jojoba Oil, Beeswax, Carnauba Wax, Fractionated Coconut Oil, Shea Butter, Vitamin E, Mica, Titanium Dioxide, Oxides, May contain Yellow #5 Lake, Yellow #6 Lake, Red #7 Lake, Red #40, Red #33, Red #27, Red #30, Orange #5, Hydrogenated Polisobutene and Palmitic Acid.

The difficulty in assigning synonyms to “burlesque” is that things are not only nuanced but historically variable; what would in one time and place have been thought satirical might in other circumstances be called a parody.  The earliest known use in English of the noun parody was by the playwright Benjamin Jonson (circa 1572-circa 1637) who would have understood it as something close to the modern definition: “a literary work in which the form and expression of dignified writing are closely imitated but are made ridiculous by the ludicrously inappropriate subject or methods; a travesty that follows closely the form and expression of the original”.  Parody was from the Latin parodia (parody), from the Ancient Greek parōidia (burlesque song or poem), the construct being para- (beside, parallel to (used in this context in the sense “to mock; mockingly to present”)) + ōidē (song, ode) and from the technical use in theatre came the general meaning “a poor or feeble imitation”, in use by at least the late 1820s.  So, depending on the details, a parody could be a type of burlesque but might also be described as a satire, ridicule, lampoon or farce.  It was Benjamin Jonson who in 1609 debuted his “anti-masque” an innovation which took the form of either (1) a buffoonish and grotesque episode before the main masque or (2) a similarly farcical interlude interpolated during the performance (if performed beforehand, it was dubbed an “ante-masque”. One variant of the anti-masque was a burlesque of the masque itself and in that sense there was a distinct affinity with the Greek satyr play.

So in literary use, synonyms for burlesque must be applied on a case-by-case basis, caricature, parody and travesty all used variously to refer to the written or preformed forms imitating serious works or subjects, the purpose being to achieve a humorous or satiric purpose.  In this context, burlesque achieves its effects through a mockery of both high and low through association with their opposites: burlesques of high and low life can thus be though a kind of specific application of irony.  Caricature, usually associated with visual arts or with visual effects in literary works, implies exaggeration of characteristic details, analogous with the technique of the political cartoonist.  Parody achieves humor through application of the manner or technique (typically well-known poets, authors, artists and such), often to an unaccustomed (and, ideally, wholly incongruous) subject while a travesty can be a grotesque form of burlesque, the latter also nuanced because travesties can be intentional or just bad products.  All of these forms can be the work of absurdists, that genre ranging from the subtle to the blatant and they may also be spoofs.  Spoof was a neologism coined in 1884 by the English comedian Arthur Roberts (1852–1933) as the name of a card game which involved deception, trickery and nonsense.  From this the word came to be used of any sort of hoaxing game but it became most popular when used of literary works and staged performances which is some way parodied someone or something but the point about the use of “spoof” is should describe a “gentle” rather than a “biting” satire, elements of the burlesque thus often present in spoofs.

South Park's take on Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025).  Somewhere in probably every South Park episode, there are switches between parody, satire, ridicule, lampoon and farce with elements of the burlesque often in each.

A distinction certainly is drawn between political burlesque and political satire.  Political burlesque is a particular application of the satirical which relies on parody and exaggeration (often absurdist) to mock political figures, events, concepts or institutions and the purpose can range from the merely comic to the subversive, the two poles not being mutually exclusive.  In the burlesque, a politician’s traits, patterns of speech or behaviour (scandals are best) are explored and sometimes exaggerated to the point they become obviously ridiculous or absurd, the best practitioners of the art using the amplification to take things to a logical (if improbable) conclusion and while it can be done almost affectionately, the usual purpose is to draw attention to flaws such as incompetence, corruption, indifference to others, hypocrisy or ideological fanaticism.  Essentially a political cartoon writ large, it’s a popular device because in masking the message in humor, there’s usually some protection from a defamation writ, witness the relationship between the animation South Park and Donald Trump.  The tradition is old and evidence is at least hinted in graffiti unearthed in Ancient Rome but material from in recent centuries is extant and techniques of the English artists William Hogarth (1697–1764) and James Gillray (1756-1815) remain in use to this day, illustrating the way political burlesque is best understood as a sub-set of political satire, separate but (often) equal as it were, the differences in tone, method, and degree of exaggeration a matter of tactics rather than strategy.

As an umbrella term, “political satire” has a wide vista in that it can be subtle, dry, ironic & biting, deployed with wit & understatement but it can also switch to (some would say “descend to”) the burlesque in becoming loud, exaggerated and even grotesque in fusing elements of slapstick and farce.  While burlesque amplifies absurdity, venality or whatever is being critiqued, satire need only “point it out” and some very effective satires have done nothing more than quote politicians verbatim, their words “hoisting them with their own petard” if the mixed metaphor will be forgiven.  So, all political burlesque is political satire, but not all political satire is burlesque.  The companion term in politics is vaudevillian and that describes a politician for whom “all the world’s a stage” and politics thus a form of theatre.  Their performances can (sometimes unintentionally) sometimes seem to at least verge on the burlesque but usually it’s about attracting attention and a classic exponent was Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) who was said to have been influenced by Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989).  During the 1980 presidential campaign, a reporter asked Mr Reagan: “How can an actor run for President?”, receiving the prompt reply: “How can a president not be an actor?”  Some have of course been more adapt than others at “flicking the switch to vaudeville” and Paul Keating (b 1944; Prime Minister of Australia 1991-1996) whose vocabulary was rich (if not always refined) used to use what he called his “dead cat strategy” which referred to introducing a shocking or controversial issue to divert unwanted attention from other, more embarrassing or damaging news.  It was most graphically expressed as “tossing a dead cat on the table”.

Lindsay Lohan in burlesque mode in I Know Who Killed Me (2007).  Neglected upon its release, IKWKM has since been re-evaluated as a modern giallo and has acquired a cult following, sometimes see on the playbill of late-night screenings.

As popular entertainment, burlesque performance enjoyed a revival which began in the 1990s and in the twenty-first century it’s now an entrenched niche as well a minor industry in publishing.  By the 1960s, what was called burlesque had become rather tatty and the common understanding of the term was something not greatly different from a strip club with a slightly better class of drunk in the audience, the women there to disrobe in the hope of encouraging the sale of expensive alcoholic.  What in the 1990s was dubbed the “neo-burlesque” was not a reprise of how things used to be done but a construct which might be thought a more “women-centric” interpretation of the discipline and while there will be factions of feminism which won’t take that notion too seriously and dismiss as “false consciousness” the idea of women publicly taking off their clothes as a form of “empowerment”, the latter day performers seem to treat it as exactly that.  Despite the criticism of some, burlesque seem now to verge on the respectable and, internationally, there are various burlesque festivals and a Burlesque Hall of Fame (the grand opening, perhaps predictably, in Las Vegas).

Burlesque and the Art of the Teese /Fetish and the Art of the Teese (2006) by Dita Von Teese (stage name of Heather Renée Sweet, b 1972).  Perhaps surprisingly, despite the phrase “the art of the teese” being at least potentially a piece of “ambush marketing” piggy-backing on the success of the acclaimed (48 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list) book The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump and Tony Schwartz (b 1952), Mr Trump didn’t sue Ms von Teese.  Maybe he’s a burlesque fan-boy.

In the modern era, no figure is more associated with the neo-burlesque than Dita von Teese and her janus-configured book Burlesque and the Art of the Teese / Fetish and the Art of the Teese is similar to Mr Trump’s magnum opus in being a hybrid: part memoir, part instruction manual.  This significance of publishing the burlesque and fetish components as separate sections was presumably to make the point that while there’s obvious cross-fertilization between the two disciplines and for some the former may be a stepping stone to the latter, there is a clear distinction, one a piece of performance art, the other a deliberate statement of deviance; decisively one must step from one into the separate world of the other.  Ms von Teese’s book documents the “dos & don’ts” of each “calling” and. as she explains, the point about the neo-burlesque was it was less a revival than a re-defining, the thematic emphasis on style and glamour rather than sleaze, more aligned with the image (if not exactly the reality) of the Berlin cabarets of the 1920 than the seedy Soho strip joints which once so tarnished the brand.

Catharsis

Catharsis (pronounced kuh-thahr-sis)

(1) The purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions, especially through certain kinds of art, as tragedy or music.

(2) In psychiatry, a form of psychoanalysis or psychotherapy that encourages or permits the discharge of repressed, pent-up, socially unacceptable affects.

(3) The discharge of pent-up emotions so as to result in the alleviation of symptoms or the permanent relief of the condition.

(4) In Aristotelian literary criticism, the purging or purification of the emotions through the evocation of pity and fear, as in tragedy.

(5) In medicine, purgation, especially of the bowels.

1770: From the New Latin catharsis, from the Ancient Greek kátharsis (a cleansing) equivalent to kathar, variant stem of kathaírein (to cleanse, purge, purify), from katharós (pure, clear of dirt, clean, spotless, open, free, clear of shame or guilt, purified) + sis.    Root was the Medieval Latin Catharī (the Pure), from the Byzantine Greek καθαροί or katharoí (the Pure), plural of καθαρός (katharós) (pure).  It was probably Aristotle (384-322 BC) who was most influential in having catharsis assume its common, modern meaning: “the purging or purification of the emotions through the evocation of pity and fear, as in tragedy”.  It was in chapter VI of his Περὶ ποιητικῆς (Peri poietikês) (Poetics) he used the word in his definition of “tragedy” and although scholars have for centuries (inconclusively) debated exactly what he meant, the critical sentence was: “Tragedy through pity and fear effects a purgation of such emotions.”  The orthodoxy has long been his idea was: the tragedy having aroused in the viewer powerful feelings, it has also a therapeutic effect for after the storm and climax comes calm, a sense of release from tension, of calm (stuff purged from mind and soul).  Aristotle's Poetics remains the earliest work of Greek dramatic theory known to have survived and the first extant philosophical treatise solely to focus on literary theory, many of the definitional terms (author, poet, comedy, tragedy etc) still used today in his original sense.  In a way, he may even have been the one to have established the notion of literary theory as an idea or discipline so the work was seminal and he can’t be blamed for postmodernism.

Most of the extended senses found in Modern English are of unknown origin, the original sense from 1770 being "a bodily purging" (especially of the bowels), then an important aspect of medical practice.  After 1872 it came to be applied to emotions when it was referred to as "a purging through vicarious experience"; the psychotherapy sense first recorded in 1909 in Abraham Brill's (1874–1948) translation of Sigmund Freud's (1856–1939) Selected Papers on Hysteria  (Dr Brill’s translation the first of Freud into English).  The alternative spelling cathartick went extinct in the mid-nineteenth century while the adjective cathartic dates from its use in medical literature in the 1610s in the sense of preparations claimed to be "purgative; purifying"; more general use noted by the 1670s.  Presumably, the cures proved efficacious because the adjective cathartical soon emerged, existing also in the plural as the noun catharticals (laxatives; purging made literal).  Cathartine was a hypothetical substance once imagined to cause the bitterness and purgativeness of the dried leaves or pods of senna plants (sennapod tea remains a popular mild laxative).  Catharsis is a noun, cathart is a verb, cathartanticatharticic & anticathartic are nouns & adjectives; the noun plural is catharses.  The specialized uses in medicine include anticathartic (preventing a purging), anacathartic (inducing vomiting), emetocathartic (that is emetic (inducing nausea & vomiting) and cathartic) and hemocathartic (that serves to cleanse the blood).

The term “Catherine wheel” was originally from the early thirteenth century and described a torture device, the spiked wheel on which (according to some versions of what is thought to be a most dubious tale) the legendary virgin Saint Catherine of Alexandria was in 307 tortured and martyred by the pagan Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius (circa 283–312; a Roman emperor, 306-312), thus becoming, in the associative way the Church did these things, patron saint of spinners.  She was a most popular saint in medieval times and popularized the name Catherine (and its variations), the favor enduring to this day.  It was applied from 1760 to a kind of firework which shot flame from a revolving spiral tube, creating the shape of a spinning wheel.

The modern catharsis is a public event, best enjoyed after emerging from rehab:  Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) and Oprah Winfrey (b 1954), 2013. 

Cathar (religious puritan (implied in Catharism)), dates from the 1570s and was from the Medieval Latin Cathari (the Pure), the name taken by the Novatians and other Christian sects, from the New Testament Greek katharizein (to make clean), from the Ancient Greek katharós (pure).  It was applied particularly to the twelfth century sects (Albigenses etc) in Languedoc and the Piedmont which denied and defied the authority of the pope.  The feminine proper name Catherine is from the French Catherine, from the Medieval Latin Katerina, from the Classical Latin Ecaterina, from the Ancient Greek Aikaterine.  The -h- was introduced in the sixteenth century, probably a tribute in folk etymology from the Greek katharos (pure).  Familiar in Modern English also as Katherine, Kate, Cate and other variations, the initial Greek vowel preserved in the Russian form Ekaterina.  For reasons unknown, Catherine began to be used as a type of pear in the 1640s. 

Of the Cathars: Catharism

With origins in Persia and the Byzantine Empire, Catharism was a dualist (or Gnostic revival) fork of Christianity, the movement most active during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in what is now northern Italy and southern France.  It was not a good time to be promoting the notion of two Gods, one good, the other evil; this dualism was however the essential core of Cathar beliefs.  The good God was the God of the New Testament and the creator of the spiritual realm, contrasted with the evil Old Testament God, creator of the physical world and this being many Cathars (and not a few of their persecutors) identified as Satan.  It was an exacting creed in which all visible matter (including the human body), was created by the evil god and therefore tainted with sin.  Taint might be an understatement; Cathars thought human spirits were the lost spirits of angels trapped within the physical creation of the evil god, destined to be reincarnated until they achieved salvation through what they called the consolamentum, a highly ritualized form of baptism.

The Holy See's foreign policy when the pope did have a few divisions: The papal army, the Cathars & the Albigensian Crusade.

All this was heresy to the monotheistic Roman Catholic Church, founded on the fundamental principle of one God, the creator of all things temporal and spiritual.  The Church’s crackdown got serious during the pontificate of Innocent III (circa 1160-1216; pope 1198-1216), initially by means of political and theological persuasion but with the assassination of his emissary, Innocent abandoned diplomacy, declared his dead ambassador a martyr and launched a military operation, the twenty-year (1209-1229) Albigensian Crusadel; it was the beginning of the end of Catharism and after 1244 when the great fortress of Montsegur (near the Pyrenees) was razed, the Cathars became an underground movement, many fleeing to Italy where the persecution was milder.  The hierarchy faded but the heresy lingered until it finally it vanished early in the fifteenth century.

Simone Weil.

Simone Weil (1909-1943) was a French philosopher and political activist who, in a manner unusual among left-leaning intellectuals of the era, returned to the religion ignored in her youth and became attracted to the mystical.  Remembered for her political writings and active service in both the Spanish Civil War and occupied France, she died tragically young in the self-sacrificial manner she had lived her life.  Among the more delicate historians, (typified by Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975)), there’s often an undisguised preference for Greek over Roman but few went as far as Weil who could find no virtue in the latter and was barely less dismissive of the medieval Church.  By contrast, in the Cathars, she found exemplars of goodness although she offered few reasons and fewer still shreds of evidence for this.  Most convincing is the notion that what Weil called malheur (affliction) went beyond merely describing suffering and made of it, if not a fetish, then certainly a calling.  Weil felt there were only some able truly to experience affliction: those least deserving of suffering.  Seduced by the lure of the tragic and having trawled history, she found in the Cathars the doomed victims with whom she could identify, drawn to them as Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) was to Ted Hughes (1930–1998; Poet Laureate 1984-1998).

Simone Weil agitprop.

Although her readership remains substantially limited to those clustered around a number of academic and feminist circles, Weil’s influence on literature has been profound.  She wrote neither fiction nor poetry but in her prolific output, existing mostly in letters and notebooks (in her lifetime almost wholly unseen and edited for publication only posthumously), lay an extraordinary exploration of the contradictions and confusion of the modern world.  One gains much from reading Weil for despite her tone there’s pleasure in enjoying the lucidity and discovering an uncompromising critique of a world poisoned by the exclusivity of Christianity and its damnation of progress as heresy.  But guilt tinges the pleasure.  This tortured soul lived and died in anguish and dark despair because she knew she deserved no more in a world of where injustice had triumphed and probably forever would.  One fears that in all her brief years, she may never have felt a moment’s joy.

Revoke & Irrevocable

Revoke (pronounced ri-vohk)

(1) To take back or withdraw; annul, cancel, rescind or reverse; rescind or repeal.

(2) To bring or summon back.

(3) In certain card games, to fail to follow suit when possible and required (renege the more common term).

(4) Such an act or instance of revoking.

1300–1350: From the Middle English revoken, from the Latin revocāre (to call again; to call back; withdraw), the construct being re- (in the sense of “again”) + vocāre (to call).  The synonyms (depending on context) are countermand, nullify, recall and retract.  Revoke is a noun & verb, revoker is a noun, revoked & revoking are verbs and revokingly is an adverb; the noun plural is revokers.

Irrevocable (pronounced ih-rev-uh-kuh-buhl (U) or ih-ri-vohk-kuh-buhl (non-U))

Not to be revoked or recalled; unable to be changed, repealed or annulled; unalterable.

1350–1400: From the Middle English, from the Middle French irrévocable from the Latin irrevocābilis (that which cannot be recalled, unalterable), the construct being ir- (the prefix an assimilated form of in- (not, opposite of)) + revocabilis (able to be revoked).  Irrevocable is an adjective, irrevocableness & irrevocability are nouns, and irrevocably is an adverb; the noun plural is irrevocabilities.

The trust, Rupert Murdoch and irrevocably

The trust in its modern form is an invention of English common law.  Although the trustee concept was a part of Roman civil law, its operation essentially was restricted to the a class of ownership of assets held by someone who would now be known as the executor or administrator of the estate of a deceased; the administrator would be the legal owner (though not necessarily the possessor) of the goods but their rights to them was limited to distributing them (or if sold or dissolved, their value) to the beneficiaries named in the deceased testamentary documents (will).  The novel innovation of the English common law was to apply a similar concept to the property of someone living.  During the Crusades (the expeditions by Christian military formations between 1095-1291 attempting to retake the Holy Land (Jerusalem and its environs)), it was the practice for a land-owning Crusader to convey (ie transfer ownership) his property to another so the estate could continue to operate as part of the feudal land system, this done on the basis that upon his return to England, the property would revert to him.  Most such arrangements were honored but some were not and because English law regarded land title as absolute, whomever was the legal “owner” of the land could defend that right against any claim.  A subject’s only recourse was to seek justice by petitioning the king and in most cases the matter would be referred to the chancellor (an office something like a mix of prime-minister & minister of justice) who would decide each case on its merits.  That of course resulted in inconsistencies and led to the development of the Court of Chancery and the emergence of the principles of the law of “equity”, designed both to remove inconsistencies and avoid the injustices sometimes the result of the strict application of the rigid rules of the common law.

Thus the emergence of the trust in which property could be transferred from one to another but with rights of the legal “owner” of the property in the trust restricted by the terms of the trust (typically that the property or its proceeds could be used or applied only to those beneficiaries named); the “legal owner” was thus really the trustee (the administrator).  It was a mechanism which proved useful over the centuries including during the wars of religion when trusts could be created to protect property from confiscation.  The trust is a flexible beast and a variety exist including the “secret trust” (although in most places they’re not as secret as once they were) and although most trusts formally are created an so-named, if an arrangement is found in substance and operation to be “a trust in all nut name”, a court can declare it to be a trust (technically a “constructive trust”).  Trusts are widely used today, mostly tax-minimization platforms because, as a general principle, income gained by a trust is not taxable until paid out to a beneficiary.  That has made trusts of great interest to those advocating tax-reform but because among the most enthusiastic users of trusts are the rich and politicians (society’s most dynamic and influential symbiosis whether in New York, Moscow, Beijing, Islamabad or Pyongyang), not much is likely to change.  A particular flavor of trust is the “irrevocable trust” which, as the name suggests, should be one in which the terms cannot be altered.

Washoe County Courthouse (1910), Reno Nevada.  Built in Classical Revival style, it first gained national attention when the combination of liberal residency requirements and liberal divorce laws created a "divorce boom" which made a significant contribution to the Nevada economy.

In 1999 Rupert Murdoch (b 1931), at the time of his second divorce, created the Murdoch Family Trust (MFT), into which was transferred the shareholdings of a number of companies and the terms of the trust were such that the succession plans for his media empire were settled.  The trust grants the family eight votes, Mr Murdoch controlling four, each of his eldest four children holding one; upon Mr Murdoch’s death, his four would have been distributed equally to them.  The device was created as an “irrevocable trust” as part of the terms of the divorce, the ex-wife waiving the right to a much higher payout in return for the “irrevocable” protection the terms of the trust afforded the four children.  In December 2023, Mr Murdoch filed papers in Reno, Nevada seeing to amend (ie in the technical sense “partially revoke”) the terms of the “irrevocable” MFT to the extent that his oldest son would assume full control over News Corp, the holding company which manages literally hundreds of assets (the best-known of which is now Fox News), excluding the other three siblings.  This was about operational control and did not affect the children’s financial stake in the trust.  The matter (In the Matter of the Doe 1 Trust) was in September 2024 heard before a probate commissioner, in camera, at Washoe County Courthouse, the parties (1) Rupert Murdoch and the eldest son on one side and (2) the three other siblings on the other.

Mr Murdoch had not previously been much associated with the state of Nevada but his legal team chose to file in Nevada because the state has the nation’s most flexible (they like to use the term “progressive”) statutes relating to trust law and it was thus concluded it was there that the highest chance existed for amending an “irrevocable” trust.  The Nevada approach in these matters in interesting in that the state permits “decanting”, a process by which a trustee can transfer assets from one trust into a new trust with different terms, in effect modifying the original trust in that the assets become subject to different rules.  Decant (inter alia “to pour from one vessel into another”) was from the French From French décanter, from the Medieval Latin dēcanthāre, the construct being dē- (of; from) +‎ canthus (beak of a cup or jug).  For administrative simplicity, decanting does not require the approval of a court but can be subject to challenge if it’s alleged a trustee lacks the requisite discretionary authority under the terms of the original trust document.

Wedding day: Rupert Murdoch (b 1931) & model Jerry Hall (b 1956).  The ceremony was conducted at Church of England church of St Bride's, Fleet Street, London, March 2016.  The couple divorced in 2022.

Under Nevada law, despite the name, an “irrevocable trust” is not “irrevocable” in an absolute sense because beneficiaries and trustees can agree to modify the terms of such a trust, even if the trust is irrevocable.  This process (a “non-judicial settlement agreement”) avoids the need for a court hearing, thereby reducing the expense and time required and exemplifies the sort of “flexibility” Nevada’s corporate regulators cite as reasons why the state should be a trustee’s jurisdiction of choice.  However, Nevada does require any modifications be consistent with the trust's purpose and not in violation with its fundamental terms and moreover the usual principles of equity governing trusts apply: there can be no unconscionable conduct.  A Nevada court also can modify or terminate an irrevocable trust if the trust's purpose has become impossible, impracticable, or illegal, or if circumstances not anticipated by the original grantor arise.  In that the remit of equity is wider than in contract law where courts have always been reluctant to “write contracts” although they will correct technical errors and a Nevada court can appoint a “trust protector”, an officer with the authority to amend trust terms, change beneficiaries, or even (under specified conditions) terminate the trust.  This authority can extend to the creation of a “directed trust” (a special class of constructed trust) which allow the grantor or beneficiaries to appoint an entity or individual to oversee specific trust decisions, which can include modifications (all of which are subject to the supervision and ultimately the approval of the court).

The decision of the probate commission in Reno will not have pleased Mr Murdoch.  In a 96 page opinion published on 9 December, the commissioner found Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch (b 1971; the eldest son) had acted in “bad faith” in their attempts to change the terms of the irrevocable MFT, suggesting the pair had organized a “carefully crafted charade” to “permanently cement Lachlan Murdoch’s executive roles” inside the empire “regardless of the impacts such control would have over the companies or the beneficiaries” of the MFT.  He didn’t go as far as one New Zealand judge who once damned evidence brought before him as “an orchestrated litany of lies” but the tone was still severe.

One untypical aspect of the matter is that it wasn’t directly about money; most trust cases involve money, indeed, a financial motivation is at the root of most civil matters.  Mr Murdoch was moved to seek to change the terms of the MFT because he’d concluded Lachlan was the only one of the four children who shared his views on how the editorial position of affected media outlets (most notably Fox News) should be maintained, the other three tending to a more liberal (in US terms) stance.  Interestingly, although that may appear a family’s ideological squabble, the documents which emerged from the discovery process in the matter of Dominion Voting Systems v Fox News (Delaware Superior Court: N21C-03-257; N21C-11-082) which culminated (thus far) in Fox settling the matter by paying Dominion some US$790 million, the alternative being to continue the case and allow more of Fox’s internal documents to enter the public domain) suggested that Mr Murdoch’s decisions about such things are led more by a commercial imperative than any political commitment.  In other words, Fox News should do what it does because it attracted viewers (the product) to deliver to advertisers (the customers); were the Fox News audience suddenly to have a moment of mass-catharsis and become a bunch of seed-eating, basket-weaving hippie vegans, so would shift the Fox News editorial stance.

The usual purpose of an irrevocable trust is to protect the beneficiary (or beneficiaries) from others but they have been recommended for those who might be advantaged by being “protected from themselves”.

So what Mr Murdoch wishes to ensure is that Fox News keeps on doing what it does (and whether one agrees with it or not, few would deny at what it does it’s the best in the world) because that is the path to the highest financial benefits for the MFT.  Lachlan understands and the others don’t so Mr Murdoch is trying to protect the three dissident children from themselves.  Whether defiant or deluded, the dissident triumvirate were pleased with the recommendation: “We welcome the commissioner’s decision and hope that we can move beyond this litigation to focus on strengthening and rebuilding relationships among all family members.”  It’s there’s a Murdoch family Christmas dinner, there might be what a diplomatic communiqué would describe as a “frank and robust exchange of views”.

Wedding day: Rupert Murdoch (b 1931) & molecular biologist Elena Zhukova (b 1956).  The ceremony was conducted at Mogara, Mr Murdoch’s Californian vineyard, June 2024.

The procedure in Nevada is the commissioner’s opinion will now be referred to a district court judge, sitting as a court of probate.  The judge can issue a ruling wholly favourable to one side or the other or in some way structure a decision which gives something to each; there will thus be one appeal or two and that may trigger more so although it’s possible the matter may not be finalized before Mr Murdoch dies (God forbid), he recently celebrated his fifth marriage so appears to remain robust and in rude good health.

Phlebotomy

Phlebotomy (pronounced fluh-bot-uh-mee)

(1) The act or practice of opening a vein for letting or drawing blood as a therapeutic or diagnostic measure; the letting of blood and known in historic medicine as "a bleeding".

(2) Any surgical incision into a vein (also known as venipuncture & (less commonly) venesection).  It shouldn’t be confused with a phlebectomy (the surgical removal of a vein).

1350–1400: From the earlier flebotomye & phlebothomy, from the Middle French flebotomie, from the thirteenth century Old French flebothomie, (phlébotomie the Modern French) from the Late & Medieval Latin phlebotomia, from the Ancient Greek φλεβοτόμος (phlebotómos) (a lancet used to open a vein), the construct being φλέψ (phléps) (genitive phlebos) (vein), of uncertain origin + tomē (a cutting), from the primitive Indo-European root tem- (to cut).  The form replaced the Middle English fleobotomie.  The noun phlebotomist (one who practices phlebotomy, a blood-letter) is documented only as late as the 1650s but may have been in use earlier and operated in conjunction with the verb phlebotomize.  The earlier noun and verb in English (in use by the early fifteenth century) were fleobotomier & fleobotomien.  The Latin noun phlebotomus (genitive phlebotomī) (a lancet or fleam (the instruments used for blood-letting)) was from the Ancient Greek φλεβότομος (phlebótomos) (opening veins), the construct being φλέψ (phléps) (blood vessel) +‎ τέμνω (témnō) (to cut) +‎ -ος (-os) (the adjectival suffix).  The alternative spelling was flebotomus.  The noun fleam (sharp instrument for opening veins in bloodletting (and this in the pre-anesthetic age)) was from the late Old English, from Old French flieme (flamme in Modern French), from the Medieval Latin fletoma, from the Late Latin flebotomus, from Greek φλεβοτόμος (phlebotómos) (a lancet used to open a vein).  The doublet was phlebotome and in barracks slang, a fleam was a sword or dagger.  Phlebotomy & Phlebotomist are nouns, phlebotomize is a verb and phlebotomic & phlebotomical are adjectives; the noun plural is phlebotomies.

Phlebotomy describes the process of making a puncture in a vein cannula for the purpose of drawing blood.  In modern medicine the preferred term is venipuncture (used also for therapy) although the title phlebotomist continues to be used for those who specialize in the task.  One of the most frequently performed procedures in clinical practice, it’s commonly undertaken also by doctors, nurses and other medical staff.  Although the origins of phlebotomy lie in the ancient tradition of blood letting, it’s now most associated with (1) the taking of blood samples for testing by pathologists and (2) those carried out as “therapeutic phlebotomies” as part of the treatment regimen for certain disorders of the blood.  The inner elbow is the most often used site but in therapeutic medicine or in cases where the veins in the arms are not suitable, other locations can be used.

Bleeding the foot (circa 1840), oil on canvas following Honoré Daumier (1808-1879).

It’s an urban myth the Hippocratic Oath includes the clause: “First, do no harm” but by any reading that is a theme of the document and while the Greek physician Hippocrates of Kos (circa 460-circa 375 BC) wouldn’t have been the first in his field to regard illness as something to be treated as a natural phenomenon rather than something supernatural, he’s remembered because of his document.  His doctrine was one which took a long time to prevail (indeed there are pockets where still it does not), holding that treatment of ailments needed to be based on science (“evidence-based” the current phrase) rather than devotion or appeals to the gods.  His influence thus endures but one of his most famous theories which persisted for decades resulted in much lost blood for no known benefit and an unknown number of deaths.  Drawing from the notion of earlier philosophers that the basis of the universe was air, earth, water & fire, the theory was that there were four “humors” which had to be maintained in perfect balance to ensure health in body & mind, the four being flegmat (phlegm), sanguin (blood), coleric (yellow bile) & melanc (black bile) which were the source of the four personality types, the phlegmatic, the sanguine, the choleric & the melancholic.  Had Hippocrates and his successors left the humors in the realm of the speculative, it would now be thought some amusing fragment from Antiquity but unfortunately surgical intervention was designed to ensure balance was maintained and the mechanism of choice was bloodletting to “remove excess liquids”.

George Washington in his last illness, attended by Doctors Craik and Brown (circa 1800) engraving by unknown artist, Collection of The New-York Historical Society.

Apparently, bloodletting was practiced by the ancient Egyptians some 3000 years ago and it’s not impossible it was among the medical (or even religious) practices of older cultures and From there it’s known to have spread to the Middle East, Rome, Greece and West & South Asia, physicians and others spilling blood in the quest to heal and the evidence suggests it was advocated for just about any symptom.  The very idea probably sounds medieval but in the West that really was the nature of so much medicine until the nineteenth century and even well into the twentieth, there were still some reasonably orthodox physicians advocating its efficacy.  Still, in fairness to Hippocrates, he was a pioneer in what would now be called “holistic health management” which involved taking exercise, eating a balanced diet and involving the mind in art & literature.  He was an influencer in his time.  All the humors were of course good but only in balance so there could be too much of a good thing.  When there was too much, what was in excess had to go and apart from bloodletting, there was purging, catharsis & diuresis, none of which sound like fun.  Bloodletting however was the one which really caught on and was for centuries a fixture in the surgeon’s bag.

Blood self-letting: Lindsay Lohan as Carrie from the eponymous film, Halloween party, Foxwoods Resort & Casino, Connecticut, October 2013.

Actually, as the profession evolved, the surgeons emerged from the barber shops where they would pull teeth too.  The formal discipline of the physician did evolve but they restricted themselves to providing the diagnosis and writing scripts from which the apothecary would mix his potions and pills, some of which proved more lethal than bloodletting.  The bloodletting technique involved draining blood from a large vein or artery (the most productive soon found to be the median cubital at the elbow) but if a certain part of the body was identified as being out-of-balance, there would be the cut.  The mechanisms to induce blood loss included cupping, leeching & scarification and with the leeches, they were actually onto something, the thirsty creatures still used today in aspects of wound repair and infection control, able often to achieve better results more quickly than any other method.  Leeches have demonstrated extraordinary success in handing the restoration of blood flow after microsurgery and reimplantation and works because the little parasites generate substances like fibrinase, vasodilators, anticoagulants & hyaluronidase, releasing them into the would area where they assist the healing process by providing an unrestricted blood flow.  Of course the leeches don't always effect a cure.  When in 1953 doctors were summoned to examine a barely conscious comrade Stalin (1878-1953; Soviet leader 1924-1953), after their tests they diagnosed a haemorrhagic stroke involving the left middle cerebral artery.  In an attempt to lower his blood pressure, two separate applications of eight leeches each were applied over 48 hours but it was to no avail.  Had he lived he might have had both leeches and physicians shot but all survived to be of further service.

A Surgeon Letting Blood from a Woman's Arm, and a Physician Examining a Urine-flask (in some descriptions named Barber-Surgeon Bleeding a Patient), eighteenth century oil on canvas, attributed to school of Jan Josef Horemans (Flemish; 1682-1752); Previously attributed to Flemish School, artist Richard Brakenburg (Dutch; 1650-1702).

Scarification was a scraping of the skin and if the circumstances demanded more, leeches could be added.  Cupping used dome-shaped cups placed on the skin to create blisters through suction and once in place, suction was achieved through the application of heat.  However it was done it could be a messy, bloody business and in the twelfth century the Church banned the practice, calling it “abhorrent” and that had the effect of depriving priests and monks of a nice, regular source of income which wasn’t popular.  However, especially in remote villages far from the bishop’s gaze, the friars continued to wield their blades and harvest their leeches, the business of bloodletting now underground.  In the big towns and cities though the barbers added bloodletting to their business model and it’s tempting to wonder whether package deals were offered, bundling a blooding with a tooth pulling or a haircut & shave.  From here it was a short step to getting into the amputations, a not uncommon feature of life before there were antibiotics and to advertise their services, the barber-surgeons would hang out white rags smeared in places with blood, the origin of the red and white striped poles some barbers still display.  To this day the distinctions between surgeons and physicians remains and in England the Royal College of Physicians (the RCP, a kind of trade union) was founded by royal charter in 1518.  By the fourteenth century there were already demarcation disputes between the barber surgeons and the increasingly gentrified surgeons and a number of competing guilds and colleges were created, sometimes merging, sometimes breaking into factions until 1800 when the Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) was brought into existence.  It's said there was a time when fellows of the RCP & RCS, when speaking of each-other, would only ever make reference to "the other college", the name of the institution never passing their lips. 

Bloodletting tools: Late eighteenth century brass and iron “5-fingered” fleam.

Unfortunately, while doubtlessly lobbying to ensure the fees of their members remained high, the colleges did little to advance science and the byword among the population remained: “One thing's for sure: if illness didn't kill you, doctors would”.  It was the researchers of the nineteenth century, who first suggested and then proved germ theory, who sounded the death knell for most bloodletting, what was visible through their microscopes rendering the paradigm of the four humors obsolete.  By the twentieth century it was but a superstition.