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The Human Face and Body in Modern German Novels

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The Human Face and Body in Modern German Novels Gabriela Stoicea Fictions of Legibility Lettre To Fabiana and Freya Gabriela Stoicea (PhD) is a scholar at Clemson University, USA. Her research focuses on the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, with an emphasis on processes of identity and knowledge formation at the intersection of literature, film, philos- ophy, science, and politics. She has published articles on Sophie von La Roche, Fritz Lang, Claude Lanzmann, and Robert Musil. Gabriela Stoicea Fictions of Legibility The Human Face and Body in Modern German Novels from Sophie von La Roche to Alfred Döblin Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche National- bibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http:// dnb.d-nb.de This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDeri- vatives 4.0 (BY-NC-ND) which means that the text may be used for non-commercial pur- poses, provided credit is given to the author. For details go to http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ To create an adaptation, translation, or derivative of the original work and for commercial use, further permission is required and can be obtained by contacting rights@transcript- publishing.com Creative Commons license terms for re-use do not apply to any content (such as graphs, figures, photos, excerpts, etc.) not original to the Open Access publication and further permission may be required from the rights holder. The obligation to research and clear permission lies solely with the party re-using the material. © 2020 transcript Verlag, Bielefeld Cover layout: Maria Arndt, Bielefeld Cover illustration: Nicholas Galanin, What Have We Become? Vol. 5 (2006) Printed by Majuskel Medienproduktion GmbH, Wetzlar Print-ISBN 978-3-8376-4720-4 PDF-ISBN 978-3-8394-4720-8 https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839447208 Printed on permanent acid-free text paper. Contents Acknowledgments .....................................................................................7 Introduction............................................................................................ 9 Part One: The Eighteenth Century Historical Background................................................................................21 Preamble............................................................................................................. 21 Readability and Corporeality in Lavater......................................................................25 Reading in the Eighteenth Century ...........................................................................29 The Readable Body in the Eighteenth Century ............................................................ 32 Reading the Body in the Eighteenth Century............................................................... 36 The Body in Perspective: Sophie von La Roche’s Geschichte des Fräuleins von Sternheim (1771)................................................................................ 49 La Roche on Lavater and Physiognomics................................................................... 50 Causation and Corporeal Visibility.............................................................................52 Multiperspectivism and Corporeal Visibility................................................................. 61 Experimenting with Multiperspective Narration............................................................ 71 Part Two: The Nineteenth Century Historical Background............................................................................... 83 Preamble............................................................................................................ 83 The Rationalized Body and Its Discontents..................................................................92 The Body as “Versable” Type: Friedrich Spielhagen’s Zum Zeitvertreib (1897).............. 107 Body Language and Dress as Markers of Social Ambivalence ........................................ 110 Why Ambivalence?................................................................................................ 118 The Making and Unmaking of Types..........................................................................120 Part Three: The Twentieth Century The Soul-Stripped Body: Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929) .......................133 The Case Against Psychology................................................................................. 133 Döblin’s Anti-Psychologism in Literary-Theoretical Perspective......................................140 Döblin’s Anti-Psychologism in Medical-Scienti•c Perspective.........................................142 Anti-Psychologism and the New Media..................................................................... 153 Anti-Psychologism as Political Engagement ..............................................................160 Conclusions...........................................................................................171 Bibliography ......................................................................................... 175 Index ................................................................................................. 189 Acknowledgments Writing a book is as much a communal act as an individual enterprise. The long hours of solitary grind would never come to publishing fruition without an army of people providing guidance and input along the way. So it has been with this monograph. Fictions of Legibility began as a dissertation in German Studies at Yale University, and I could not have researched, written, or revised it without the intellectual support of some extraordinary people. My advisors, Brigitte Peucker and Rüdiger Campe, vested great faith in the project, both in its dissertation form and in what it promised to become as a book. Their encouragement and suggestions were indispensable for the development of the project, and they continue to be a model of scholarship as I move forward in my career. I am also indebted to Kirk Wetters for always suggesting new frameworks through which to think about the material and for teaching me to stay on track without losing sight of the big picture. A particularly formative experience during the revision process was my participation in a six-week seminar organized at Cornell University in the summer of 2014 under the auspices of the Institute for German Cultural Studies. The interdisciplinary discussions we had there on the topic of narration and knowledge challenged me to view the project through new frames of reference and to think about its stakes from broader theoretical perspectives. The generous feedback I received from the seminar participants and from the organizer, Paul Fleming, profoundly shaped my thinking and moved my work forward in ways I could not have achieved alone. Substantial institutional support has made this book possible. I am especially grateful to the Department of Languages at Clemson University for attending to my research needs over the years. I also cannot thank enough my colleagues in the German section for accommodating me in all the stages of the arduous journey to tenure. Generous funding for the completion of this monograph was provided by two grants from the Clemson Humanities Hub and the Clemson Support for Early Exploration and Development Program. Not only did these awards defray some of the publication expenses, but they also afforded me invaluable research time away from campus in the form of writing retreats. 8 FictionsofLegibility A very special thank you goes to the Circulation and Resource Sharing Librarians at Clemson University’s main library. In addition to crucial research support throughout the project, they always provided a kind word, friendly smile, and judgment-free space to an academic who spent one too many hours using their facilities. Kathy Edwards, Alison Mero, John Morgenstern, and Ed Rock also provided vital assistance at various points in the process. To all these dedicated librarians who went above and beyond, I am eternally grateful. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my editor, Annika Linnemann, and her entire team at Transcript for the care, expertise, and professionalism with which they prepared the manuscript for publication. A heartfelt thank you also to Nicholas Galanin, whose inspiring artwork graciously adorns the cover of this book. My final words of appreciation are reserved for those I consider my biggest cheerleaders. My husband, Lucian, patiently endured my absences from home, took on all the domestic responsibilities that I skirted while finishing the manuscript, and helped me think through various aspects of the book. From working weekends to writing impasses and everything in between, he has seen and supported me through it all — no questions asked and no complaints. I am also grateful beyond words for and to my daughters, Fabiana and Freya. Their inexhaustible energy and contagious enthusiasm kept me going when inspiration and a good night’s sleep were in short supply. Last but not least, I want to thank my colleague Johannes Schmidt for giving me the gift of time when I most needed it. Without his untiring support, this book would surely not have been possible. And for keeping my spirits high and my feet on the ground during many months of hard work, my good friends Raquel Anido and Aga Skrodzka deserve special thanks. Introduction “The most entertaining surface on earth […] is that of the human face.”1 These words are as true today as when the German
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