The importance of the ARSE and farting, for centuries now

Two authors of Spain's Golden Age and the early Enlightenment devoted entire works to defending the backside and flatulence with the same erudition they applied to solemn subjects. Literary wit turns a vulgar matter into a game of language.

## An arse with many misfortunes

**Francisco de Quevedo** (1580–1645), one of the central figures of the Spanish Golden Age, wrote *Gracias y desgracias del ojo del pandero*. The text belongs to the **17th century**, although the exact date of its first edition is uncertain, so no one can date it precisely.

Quevedo mixes proverbs, learned references and double meanings to enumerate the virtues of the backside and, above all, its tribulations. Among them, paying for the mistakes of the other parts of the body. It is satire, not anatomy.

## The dean who defended the fart

**Manuel Martí** (1663–1737), a Valencian humanist known as the dean of Alicante, signed a fiery defence of flatulence. He wrote it in Latin under the title *Pro crepitu ventris*, composed around **1695** and published in **1738**.

The subject is everyday and indecorous. The treatment, however, imitates the solemnity of a scholarly discourse: quotations, arguments and academic rhetoric. That is where the joke lies.

## Why they still make us laugh

We tend to imagine the classics as learned and serious people. Books like these remind us that they also cultivated humour and enjoyed making their readers laugh.

What is interesting is not the crudeness but the mechanism: literary wit elevates a vulgar subject until it becomes a game of language. Erudition put at the service of the joke.