Understanding
and appreciating
the grotesque
A reflective essay written for the first-year module, PHIL110: Philosophy and the Arts by Emmalie
Vanderpool, a visiting student from Boston College.
To delve into a different mode of artistic expression, my reflective log
will dissect the work of the expressionist writer Gottfried Benn. Because
literature has always engaged me more than drawn art, poetry seemed
the obvious choice. Looking to the perturbing and morbid poems by
the poet Gottfried Benn, literary analysts cannot help but question the
draw of his disturbing writing. Benn’s dark poems which utilize images
of surgery, mutilation, and death, engage readers through portraying
the “ugly” realities of the world wars and the human experience during
this time. I believed that the desire to read about disturbing situations
was problematic, and my enjoyment of experiencing pain and turmoil
secondhand seemed unnatural. After reading and enjoying unpleasant
artworks I have questioned how aesthetically unappealing art expresses
itself, and why this expression is worthwhile and engaging.
While poetry as an artform relies much less on physical visual
stimuli, Benn’s writing centers around intense and disturbing imagery
which presents a narrative that can be imagined vividly. The German
Expressionist writer initially worked as a military doctor during WWI and
wrote poetry about his gruesome experiences in both wars. After taking
a class on Modern German art and literature which featured Benn as a
major poet, I began reading more of his poetry and found his perspective
and expressionist tactics dark and fascinating. Expressionist art is
defined by its separation from reality; it is “the intellectual movement of
a time which places the inner experience above external life” (Schultz
1959: 13). While art is often coined as recreating nature, I find it more
worthwhile to access the “internal” and dissect the motivating forces of
life rather than depict something which is already tangible (“external”).
By documenting the scientific medical process through his poetry, Benn
questions the value of human life, the treatment of humanity in his age,
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