This article compares representations of corporal morphology in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) with Georg Büchner’s Lenz (1836). Focusing on anecdotes where corpses are the focus reveals a diverging literary style in representing the emerging science of morphology, or the study of the shape and form of natural objects. When read through Immanuel Kant’s ‘Critique of Teleological Judgment’ from his Critique of Judgement and Johan Wolfgang von Goethe’s essay ‘On Morphology’, I argue that Shelley’s and Büchner’s works contain the seeds of critique of two very different effects of idealism, teleology, and the purposiveness of nature. Whereas idealist scientists and doctors proposed a distance between the observer and the object of study, in Kant’s words to perceive and act ‘as if’ the object has a purpose from a human-centered point of view, Goethe suggested a study of the morphology of living objects, which simultaneously affects the object and observer. A comparative methodology, where the focus is short anecdotes, follows close reading methods proposed by Erich Auerbach, Stephen Greenblatt, and Catherine Gallagher. The scenes where corpses are highlighted in Büchner’s Lenz and Merry Shelley’s Frankenstein reveals extreme examples of neutral descriptions of an ‘object’ and the observer’s intimate link with that which is observed. The goal of objectivity developing in eighteenth century scientific practices, when read through the chiastic structure of these two literary works-animation and failed animation of a material body-reveals unique critiques of Enlightenment Idealism: the failure of success in Frankenstein, and the success of failure in Lenz.
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Soemmerring, S. T. (1994). Über die Schönheit der antiken Kinderköpfe. In Samuel Thomas Soemmerring in Kassel (1779-1784) (pp. 226-238). New York: Fischer Verlag. google scholar
Thornburg, M. K. (1984). The Monster in the Mirror: Gender and the Sentimental/Gothic Myth in Frankenstein. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press. google scholar
Veeder, W. (1986). Mary Shelley and Frankenstein: The Fate of Androgyny. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. google scholar
Wellbery, David E. (1984). Lessing’s Laocoon: Semiotics and Aesthetics in the Age of Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. google scholar
Auerbach, E. (2003). Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (W. Trask, Trans.; 50th anniversary). New Haven: Princeton University Press. google scholar
Bejan, P. (2020). Crises and Resolutions of Humanisms: From the Vitruvian Man to the Augmented Man. Hermeneia, 24(29), 29-48. google scholar
Brennan, M. C. (1989). The Landscape of Grief in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Studies in the Humanities, 15(1), 27-41. https://doi.org/doi.org/10.2307/25601210. google scholar
Büchner, G. (1988). Werke und Briefe (Münchner Ausgabe). München: Carl Hanser. google scholar
Büchner, G. (2004). Lenz (R. Sieburth, Trans.). Brooklyn, NY: Archipelago Books. google scholar
Caldwell, J. M. (2004). Science and Sympathy in Frankenstein. In Literature and Medicine in Nineteenth- Century google scholar
Britain: From Mary Shelley to George Eliot (pp. 25-45). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. google scholar
Coates, P. (1983). Realist Fantasy: Fiction and Reality since Clarissa. London: Palgrave Macmillan. google scholar
Daston, L. & Galison, P. (2007). Objectivity. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Zone Books. google scholar
Dedner, B., Gersch, H., & Martin, A. (Eds.). (1999). “Lenzens Verrückung” Chronik und Dokumente zu J. M. R. Lenz von Herbst 1777 bis Frühjahr 1778. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. google scholar
Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1983). Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (R. Hurley, M. Seem, & H. R. Lane, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. google scholar
Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1987). A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (B. Massumi, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. google scholar
Florin, M. (1991). Humans and Automatons. In B. Göranzon & M. Florin (Eds.), Dialogue and Technology: Art and Knowledge (pp. 73-85). London: Springer Verlag. google scholar
Gallaghar, C. & Greenblatt, S. (2000). Practicing New Historicism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. google scholar
Gersch, H. (1998). Der Text, der (produktive) Unverstand des Abschreibers und die Literaturgeschichte Johann Friedrich Oberlins Bericht Herr L.... Und die Textüberlieferung bis zu Georg Büchners Lenz-Entwurf. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. google scholar
Gilbert, S. & Gubar, S. (1984). Horror’s Twin: Mary Shelley’s Monstrous Eve. In The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination (pp. 213-247). New Haven: Yale University Press. google scholar
Goethe, J. W. (1985). Werke (K. Richter, H. Göpfert, N. Miller, & G. Sauder, Eds.; Münchner Ausgabe). München: Carl Hanser. google scholar
Jordanova, L. (1994). Melancholy Reflection: Constructing an Identity for Unveilers of Nature. In S. Bann (Ed.), Frankenstein: Creation and Monstrosity. (pp. 60-63). London: Reaktion Books. google scholar
Kant, I. (1987). Critique of Judgement. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing. google scholar
Ketterer, D. (1979). Frankenstein’s Creation: The Book, The Monster, and Human Reality. Victoria B.C., CA: University of Victoria. google scholar
Kiely, R. (1972). The Romantic Novel in England. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. google scholar
Mellor, A. K. (1987). Frankenstein: A Feminist Critique of Science,” in One Culture: Essays in Science and Literature. In G. Levine &A. Rauch (Eds.), One Culture: Essays in Science and Literature (pp. 287-312). Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. google scholar
Mellor, A. K. (1989). Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters. New York: Routledge. google scholar
Müller-Sievers, H. (2003). Of Fish and Men: The Importance of Georg Büchner’s Anatomical Writings. MLN, 118(3), 704-718. google scholar
Neuhuher, C. (2009). Lenz-Bilder: Bildlichkeit in Büchners Erzahlung und ihre Rezeption in der Bildenden Kunst. Weimar: Böhlau Verlag. google scholar
Nielaba, D. M. (2001). Die Nerven lessen: Zur Leit-Funktion von Georg Büchners Schreiben. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann. google scholar
Oehler-Klein, S. (1994). Schönheit der antiken Kinderköpfe. In S. T. Soemmering Kassel (1779-1784) (pp. 189-226). New York: Fischer Verlag. google scholar
Pilger, A. (1995). Die ‘idealistische Periode’ in ihren Konsequenzen. George Büchners kritische Darstellung des Idealismus in der Erzahlung Lenz. In Georg Büchner Jahrbuch (pp. 104-125). google scholar
Prikker-Thorn, J. (1978). Revolutionar Ohne Revolution: Interpretationen zu den Werke Georg Buchners (pp. 180-194). Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta. google scholar
Reider, J. (2008). Colonialism and the Emergence of Science Fiction. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press. google scholar
Shelley, M. W. (2008). Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus (C. E. Robinson, Ed.). New York: Vintage Books. google scholar
Soemmerring, S. T. (1994). Über die Schönheit der antiken Kinderköpfe. In Samuel Thomas Soemmerring in Kassel (1779-1784) (pp. 226-238). New York: Fischer Verlag. google scholar
Thornburg, M. K. (1984). The Monster in the Mirror: Gender and the Sentimental/Gothic Myth in Frankenstein. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press. google scholar
Veeder, W. (1986). Mary Shelley and Frankenstein: The Fate of Androgyny. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. google scholar
Wellbery, David E. (1984). Lessing’s Laocoon: Semiotics and Aesthetics in the Age of Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. google scholar
Kısmet Bell, J. B. (2024). Let the Bodies Hit the Floor: a Comparison of Corporal Morphology in Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Buchner’s Lenz (1836). Studien Zur Deutschen Sprache Und Literatur(51), 24-36. https://doi.org/10.26650/sdsl2023-1446598
AMA
Kısmet Bell JB. Let the Bodies Hit the Floor: a Comparison of Corporal Morphology in Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Buchner’s Lenz (1836). Studien zur deutschen Sprache und Literatur. June 2024;(51):24-36. doi:10.26650/sdsl2023-1446598
Chicago
Kısmet Bell, Jameson Bradley. “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor: A Comparison of Corporal Morphology in Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Buchner’s Lenz (1836)”. Studien Zur Deutschen Sprache Und Literatur, no. 51 (June 2024): 24-36. https://doi.org/10.26650/sdsl2023-1446598.
EndNote
Kısmet Bell JB (June 1, 2024) Let the Bodies Hit the Floor: a Comparison of Corporal Morphology in Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Buchner’s Lenz (1836). Studien zur deutschen Sprache und Literatur 51 24–36.
IEEE
J. B. Kısmet Bell, “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor: a Comparison of Corporal Morphology in Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Buchner’s Lenz (1836)”, Studien zur deutschen Sprache und Literatur, no. 51, pp. 24–36, June 2024, doi: 10.26650/sdsl2023-1446598.
ISNAD
Kısmet Bell, Jameson Bradley. “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor: A Comparison of Corporal Morphology in Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Buchner’s Lenz (1836)”. Studien zur deutschen Sprache und Literatur 51 (June 2024), 24-36. https://doi.org/10.26650/sdsl2023-1446598.
JAMA
Kısmet Bell JB. Let the Bodies Hit the Floor: a Comparison of Corporal Morphology in Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Buchner’s Lenz (1836). Studien zur deutschen Sprache und Literatur. 2024;:24–36.
MLA
Kısmet Bell, Jameson Bradley. “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor: A Comparison of Corporal Morphology in Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Buchner’s Lenz (1836)”. Studien Zur Deutschen Sprache Und Literatur, no. 51, 2024, pp. 24-36, doi:10.26650/sdsl2023-1446598.
Vancouver
Kısmet Bell JB. Let the Bodies Hit the Floor: a Comparison of Corporal Morphology in Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) and Buchner’s Lenz (1836). Studien zur deutschen Sprache und Literatur. 2024(51):24-36.