Studies of Decay. The Poetic Function of Dolls/Puppet Figures in the Work of Hans Bellmer and Paul Wühr

Abstract

As to their poetic function the depictions of dolls in two photo series by the surrealist artist Hans Bellmer as well as the puppet figures in the literary prose Das falsche Buch (The false book) by postmodern writer Paul Wühr provide answers to the decay of secular concepts of unity. Bellmer’s and Wühr’s positions are opposite with regard to the poetic effectiveness ascribed to their puppet figures. While Bellmer’s destroyed doll bodies in their specific fragmentation and arrangement act as “poetic exciters” in the face of a reality that can no longer be experienced as intact, Wühr’s dolls negate any creative performative act by means of doing ‘de-language’ and act as “poetry suffocators”. However, Wühr also emphasizes that fragmentation and deconstruction, as it is shown in Bellmer’s photo series, are necessary in order to be able to persue poetry at all.