In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Organismus und Gesellschaft. Der Körper in der deutschsprachigen Literatur des Realismus (1830–1930) by Christiane Arndt und Silke Brodersen
  • Vance Byrd
Organismus und Gesellschaft. Der Körper in der deutschsprachigen Literatur des Realismus (1830–1930). Herausgegeben von Christiane Arndt und Silke Brodersen. Bielefeld: transcript, 2011. 218 Seiten. €27,80.

In light of cultural studies scholarship in the last few decades that has sought to understand the emergence of “modernity” and the place of the body in philosophical and scientific discourses around the middle of the nineteenth century, this reviewer was eager to learn how Christiane Arndt and Silke Brodersen’s edited collection would close a gap in research on the body and German realism (13). Their introduction provides a concise overview of how industrialization, capitalism, and an increasingly scientific perspective on the human body have left a mark on realist writers. In particular, the collection’s seven contributors consider the role of physiology, the sublime, materialism, perception, bacteriology, Darwinism, and spiritualism in their outstanding analyses of canonical and less well-known novels and short stories from the late 1840s until the 1920s.

The first two essays focus on Adalbert Stifter. Brodersen sets out to establish links between popular science, physiology, and landscape description in “Aussicht und Betrachtungen von der Spitze des St. Stephansthurms,” “Bergkristall,” and “Mein Leben” to investigate how the preservation of the subject can be found in its reintegration into patriarchy (46). Then Joseph Metz’s chapter keeps our focus on Wien und die Wiener by arguing that “Ein Gang durch die Katakomben” paves the way for the modernity of Benjamin’s arcades and the excess of Bataille as well as reworks Kantian notions of the mathematical and dynamic sublime. Paul Fleming’s subsequent chapter shows how Feuerbach’s materialist anthropology surfaces in Gottfried Keller’s Spiegel, das Kätzchen to present the reader with a body more akin to Gottfried Benn’s Morgue than Lavater’s physiognomies (86). He suggests that the narrative’s plot transforms a Romantic into a realist fairy tale through materialist negotiations on the well-fed body and reason. For Elisabeth Strowick, the erosion of perception relates to the content and form of Storm’s Schimmelreiter, and the narrative’s interruptions, repetitions, and disillusion help articulate “eine radikale Aufklärungskritik” that the [End Page 512] commentator associates with modernity (98). Christiane Arndt’s chapter uses terminology from bacteriology to argue that “Fremdkörper” and capitalism have infected society in Wilhelm Raabe’s Zum Wilden Mann. Susanne Balmer’s excellent analysis of Gabriele Reuter’s Aus guter Familie and Hedwig Dohm’s Christa Ruland shows how important agency was for these writers whose novels subverted Darwinian notions of variation and adaptation to contest essentialized feminine bodies and gender roles. Finally, Nicholas Saul interprets how three novels on spiritualism and Pygmalionism—the attempt to restore or recreate bodies—come together to make readers more favorably disposed to the science, encounter an erotic body, or face anti-Semitic appropriations of the motif in the years leading up to the Second World War.

Rather than closing a gap, it seems to me that these essays contribute to an ongoing conversation in scholarship about bodies and realism, whether in gender studies, such as Catriona MacLeod’s Embodying Ambiguity, Metz’s own research on race and inner colonialism in Stifter, or Marina Warner’s and Corinna Treitel’s fascinating studies on spiritualism and technologies. Ideal for the reader interested in fresh perspectives on realist ‘classics,’ reassessments of Georg Lukács and Walter Benjamin, debates on ‘modernity’ will make this edited volume a welcome addition to his library.

Vance Byrd
Grinnell College
...

pdf

Share