{"title":"肠的易读性:利希滕伯格对贺加斯的《妓女的历程》的排泄视觉","authors":"A. Mahler","doi":"10.7228/manchester/9781526127051.003.0009","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This essay lays bare the rampant but thinly veiled scatology in Georg Christoph Lichtenberg’s renowned commentaries of William Hogarth’s A Harlot’s Progress. It shows that Lichtenberg finds all kinds of scatological objects – chamber pots, enemas, anal swabs – in Hogarth’s prints by applying what he calls the hermeneutics of hypochondria. Such a hermeneutics follows digressions, metaphorical associations, and metonymical connections to identify scatological objects in the images even where there are none. The resulting excremental vision of A Harlot’s Progress evidences, in Lichtenberg’s view, his own hypochondria and threatens the validity of his interpretations. But he also turns the scatological motif against the interpretive excess that produced it: excrement confronts the hypochondriacal interpreter with his own corporeal mortality and thus with the limits of his interpretive capacities as a human. Scatological satire therefore serves, in Lichtenberg’s conception, as something like a cynic self-therapy for interpretive hubris.","PeriodicalId":257444,"journal":{"name":"Bellies, bowels and entrails in the eighteenth century","volume":"109 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2018-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"The legibility of the bowels: Lichtenberg’s excretory vision of Hogarth’s A Harlot’s Progress\",\"authors\":\"A. Mahler\",\"doi\":\"10.7228/manchester/9781526127051.003.0009\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"This essay lays bare the rampant but thinly veiled scatology in Georg Christoph Lichtenberg’s renowned commentaries of William Hogarth’s A Harlot’s Progress. It shows that Lichtenberg finds all kinds of scatological objects – chamber pots, enemas, anal swabs – in Hogarth’s prints by applying what he calls the hermeneutics of hypochondria. Such a hermeneutics follows digressions, metaphorical associations, and metonymical connections to identify scatological objects in the images even where there are none. The resulting excremental vision of A Harlot’s Progress evidences, in Lichtenberg’s view, his own hypochondria and threatens the validity of his interpretations. But he also turns the scatological motif against the interpretive excess that produced it: excrement confronts the hypochondriacal interpreter with his own corporeal mortality and thus with the limits of his interpretive capacities as a human. Scatological satire therefore serves, in Lichtenberg’s conception, as something like a cynic self-therapy for interpretive hubris.\",\"PeriodicalId\":257444,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Bellies, bowels and entrails in the eighteenth century\",\"volume\":\"109 1\",\"pages\":\"0\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":0.0000,\"publicationDate\":\"2018-10-01\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Bellies, bowels and entrails in the eighteenth century\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"1085\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.7228/manchester/9781526127051.003.0009\",\"RegionNum\":0,\"RegionCategory\":null,\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"\",\"JCRName\":\"\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Bellies, bowels and entrails in the eighteenth century","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.7228/manchester/9781526127051.003.0009","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
The legibility of the bowels: Lichtenberg’s excretory vision of Hogarth’s A Harlot’s Progress
This essay lays bare the rampant but thinly veiled scatology in Georg Christoph Lichtenberg’s renowned commentaries of William Hogarth’s A Harlot’s Progress. It shows that Lichtenberg finds all kinds of scatological objects – chamber pots, enemas, anal swabs – in Hogarth’s prints by applying what he calls the hermeneutics of hypochondria. Such a hermeneutics follows digressions, metaphorical associations, and metonymical connections to identify scatological objects in the images even where there are none. The resulting excremental vision of A Harlot’s Progress evidences, in Lichtenberg’s view, his own hypochondria and threatens the validity of his interpretations. But he also turns the scatological motif against the interpretive excess that produced it: excrement confronts the hypochondriacal interpreter with his own corporeal mortality and thus with the limits of his interpretive capacities as a human. Scatological satire therefore serves, in Lichtenberg’s conception, as something like a cynic self-therapy for interpretive hubris.