Ciemna strona Saturna w powieściach Frances Burney

The article proposes a new interpretation of the novels by Frances Burney, the English eighteenth- century author who lived and wrote in London at the stormy times before and during the French Revolution. The carnivalesque and grotesque content of the texts is scrutinised and set against the ancient Roman tradition of the Saturnalia. The philosophical texts by Mikhail Bakhtin and Jacques Lacan are further employed to support the article’s main thesis: namely, that the carnival imagery used by Burney is typical of great socio-economical upheavals, and its roots can be traced as far back as ancient Greece and Rome.