Georg Büchner, the Anatomist

Jan Balbierz

Abstract

This article is a discussion of the book Atlas anatomiczny Georga Büchnera (George Büchner’s Anatomical Atlas) by Anna R. Burzyńska. The author tries to show that Burzyńska interprets the literary and scientific texts of the German writer through the theories of Michel Foucault, but extends them to include a broad context related to the history of ideas and science. Special attention is devoted to the interference of the medical and literary discourse. The basic theme of the book is the materiality of culture, manifested at various levels: as the materiality of the manuscript (the vast majority of Büchner texts were not published during his lifetime and the manuscripts contain a number of versions of the same scenes, they are also difficult to read and half-destroyed), the philosophical materialism related to social criticism (in The Hessian Courier, Büchner uses statistics and economic data to show the material aspects of social inequalities) and finally corporeal descriptions (Büchner is fascinated by the human body, disease, the physicality of our existence; also as a scientist he undertakes a material analysis of the bodies of vertebrates). The article shows how the writer’s work opens up to a variety of contemporary literary and cultural theories, from poststructuralism through post-secularism to somatopoetics.