Scatological literature

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Scatological literature (from ancient Greek σκώρ skṓr , genitive σκάτος skátos : “excrement”, “excrement”) describes the conscious and preferred use of direct (not: euphemistic ) expressions for faeces, excrement and things and actions related to the anal area in literary texts. Since antiquity, the drastic language typical of the genre of the humiliating poem, ie the invective , has provided the background for scatological texts. The topic of the folk tale is faecal humor, but often also the coarse humorous handling of associated everyday phenomena such as the fart .

Literary evidence

Literary evidence has existed since antiquity, here now examples from neo-Latin literature of the late baroque, the early Weimar classic and contemporary German literature.

Wilhelm Neuhaus, "In Quendam"

Wilhelm Neuhaus (1675–1740), who worked at the Hammonense grammar school , offers his readers the following epigram (3, 91 p. 152) in his “Otia parerga”, a collection of casual and occasional poems published in 1725, which the translator has given the title "The literary toilet, or: A slightly different place for the muses":

In Quendam.

Quum saturi ventris collecta saburra cloacam
     Praecipitante mora, visere forte jubet:
Cum nisu volvis lacerorum frusta librorum,
    Nempe legendo cacas, atque cacando legis.
Quantus amor studii! museum est ipsa latrina:
    Dum legis et pedis, doctor inde redis.

Against somebody.

If the ballast collected from the satiated body commands the sewer to visit the cesspool at a sudden moment, / If you leaf through single sheets of tattered books under tension, then you poop while reading and read while pooping. / What a great love for studying! A place for the muses is even your latrine. By reading and farting, you come back from there as a scholar.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "A young person, I don't know how"

Goethe's crude abusive poem, written in 1775 on the Werther critic Friedrich Nicolai: “A young person, I don't know how”, remained unpublished during the lifetime of this Frankfurt literary luminary.

A young person I don't know how,
 once died of hypochondria
and was then buried too.
A beautiful ghost came over and
had his stool free,
as people do.
He sits down on the grave,
and puts down a clean heap,
looks at his filth with comfort,
goes away again, taking breath,
and speaks to himself slowly:
“Poor man, he takes me,
how has he spoiled himself!
If he had shit like me,
he would not have died! "

Günter Grass, "Kot rhymed"

In 2015 Albrecht Schöne presented in the “ Frankfurter Anthologie ” (FAZ July 3, 2015) “Kot rhymed”, a poem by Günter Grass .

See also

Secondary literature

  • Buldrianus Sclopetarius [pseudonym!], De peditu ejusque speciebus, crepitu et visio, discursus methodicus in theses digestus , Hanover 1619 [MDZ digitalisat].
  • Paul English, The Scatological Element in Literature, Art, and Popular Life . Stuttgart 1928 (reprint not published) (191 pp.).
  • Hannjost Lixfeld , Art. Anthropophyteia . In: in: Kurt Ranke ua (Hrsg.), Enzyklopädie des Märchen . Concise dictionary for historical and comparative narrative research (15 vols.), Berlin / New York 1977–2015, vol. 1 (1975), 596–601.
  • Uli Kutter, Art. Excrement . In: Kurt Ranke et al. (Ed.), Enzyklopädie des Märchen . Concise dictionary for historical and comparative narrative research (15 vols.), Berlin / New York 1977–2015, vol. 4 (1984), 649–664.
  • Christoph Daxelmüller , Art. Fart . In: Kurt Ranke et al. (Ed.), Enzyklopädie des Märchen . Concise dictionary for historical and comparative narrative research (15 vols.), Berlin / New York 1977–2015, vol. 5 (1987), 593–600.
  • Till R. Kuhnle, Art. Kot . In: Günter Butzer / Joachim Jacob (ed.): Metzler Lexicon of literary symbols. Stuttgart / Weimar 2nd edition 2012, 223a – 224b.
  • Thomas Sing, Art. Po. In: Günter Butzer / Joachim Jacob (ed.): Metzler Lexicon of literary symbols. Stuttgart / Weimar 2nd edition 2012, 326a – 327b.
  • Andrea Grafetstätter (Ed.): Food, necessity and obscenity in the Middle Ages and early modern times. Files from the Bamberg 2011 conference (= Bamberg interdisciplinary medieval studies. Volume 6). University of Bamberg Press, Bamberg 2014
  • Wolfgang Krischke, vulgar book titles. Below the belt , FAZ April 26, 2017.
  • Matthias Laarmann, T he "Otia parerga" by Wilhelm Neuhaus (1675–1744) as neo-Latin poetry with a European horizon. Linguistic parody up to scatology, epic parody and macaronic poetry, Hamm's praise to the city and expressions of friendship across national and confessional boundaries (Wilhelm Neuhaus Studies II). [Hermann Josef Sieberg and Reinhard Spänle on their 80th birthday]. In: Contributions to the history of Dortmund and the county Mark 110 (2019), pp. 59–115, there pp. 80–83 ("Chapter 5: Scatological literature: Aestheticization of the faeces and excrement"), the epigram 3, 91 with Translation ibid., P. 83.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. especially Paul Englisch, The scatological element in literature, art and folk life. Stuttgart 1928. David-Christopher Assmann deals with a related area: On the literary semiotics of garbage (Pehnt, Hilbig, Schwab, Strauss) , in: Lis Hansen / Kerstin Roose / Dennis Senzel (eds.): The boundaries of things. Aesthetic drafts and theoretical reflections on material marginality, Wiesbaden 2018, 117–138; David-Christopher Assmann / Norbert Otto Eke / Eva Geulen (eds.): Disposal problems : Garbage in literature (special issue on the Zs. Für German Philol. 133), Berlin 2014, especially David-Christopher Assmann: Garbage literary - for an introduction , ibid. 1–18.
  2. ↑ On the narrative motif, see Uli Kutter, Art. »Exkremente«, in: Kurt Ranke, Rolf Wilhelm Brednich, et al. (Ed.): Enzyklopädie des Märchen . Concise dictionary for historical and comparative narrative research (15 volumes). Berlin, De Gruyter 1977-2015 [abk. EnzMär], Vol. 4 (1984), 649-664; “Very well read and learned” Christoph Daxelmüller, Art. “Furz”, in: EnzMär, Vol. 5 (1987), 593–600; on popular belief and superstition Hanns Bächtold-Stäubli, Art. "Furz", in: HWdA , Vol. 3 (1931), 223f. - On the fundamental ethnological significance of the erotic and scatological obscene cf. Hannjost Lixfeld, Art. »Anthropophyteia«, in: EnzMär, Vol. 1 (1975), 596–601.
  3. ↑ See Daxelmüller, Furz, in: EnzMär 5 (1987), 593-600. Rudolphus Goclenius, Physiologia crepitus ventris, Frankfurt a. M./Leipzig 1607 [MDZ digitized version]. Scholarly and amusing writes Buldrianus Sclopetarius [pseudonym!], De peditu ejusque speciebus, crepitu et visio, discursus methodicus in theses digestus, Hanover 1619 [MDZ digitized]; see. on this work English, The Scatological Element in Literature, Art and Popular Life. Stuttgart 1928, 35-37
  4. ↑ Text edition and translation by: Matthias Laarmann: The "otia parerga" of Wilhelm Neuhaus (1675-1744) as a neo-Latin poetry with a European horizon. Linguistic parody up to scatology, epic parody and macaronic poetry, Hamm's praise to the city and expressions of friendship across national and confessional boundaries (Wilhelm Neuhaus Studies II). [Hermann Josef Sieberg and Reinhard Spänle on their 80th birthday]. In: Contributions to the history of Dortmund and the county Mark 110 (2019), pp. 59–115, there pp. 80–83 (Chapter 5: Scatological literature: Aestheticization of the faeces and excrement), the epigram 3, 91 with translation ibid ., P. 83.
  5. ↑ Text: JW v. Goethe: Poems 1756–1799, ed. v. Karl Eibl, Frankfurt a. M .: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag 1987, 158.
  6. ↑ https: // www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/buecher/frankfurter-anthologie/frankfurter-anthologie-guenter-grass-kot-gereimt-13683325.html ; Text based on: Günter Grass: Complete Poems 1956–2007. Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag 2007.