Farting from Sir Toby Belch to Marx and Engels and Celia Imrie
Celia Imrie’s fart in the now concluded series of Celebrity Traitors continues to make the news but as often with little or no historical context.
Farting, unsurprisingly, has been around a long time. Shakespeare’s Midsummer Nights Dream features the aptly named Sir Toby Belch. AI thinks there are no fart jokes in the play which simply tells us that AI has not been programmed on farting.
In a more weighty vein Marx and Engels also occasional used the term in a light hearted and deprecating way in their correspondence. Engels writing to Weydemeyer on 25th November 1855 referred to the German revolutionary Carl Schurz. He had fought in 1848 and then left for America where in due course he became an anti-slavery Republican and fought in the Civil War. Engels enquired if Schulz had been fighting or farting.
Of the Germans who have joined in the war,
Willich appears to have given the best account of himself, whereas
Sigel has UNMISTAKEABLY demonstrated his mediocrity. And Schurz,
the valiant Schurz, farting away amidst the shower of bullets and
shells, what foes is he demolishing now?
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