Editorial adjustments to the text are minimal.
“…The same author affirms that while he sailed in the Red
Sea, he saw a monster in the hands of certain Indian merchants, which in the
bigness and shape of his limbs was not unlike a tiger, yet had the face of a
man, but a very flat nose: besides, his fore feet were like a man’s hands, but
the hind like the feet of a tiger; he had no tail, he was of a dun color: to
conclude, in head, ears, neck, and face it resembled a man…: for the other
parts they were like a tiger; they called it Thanacth.”
-
Ambroise Paré,
The workes of that famous chirurgion
Ambrose Parey translated out of the Latine and compared with the French by Tho.
Johnson…, London, 1634.
“This is no fairytale.
The stories are real. What they
wrote about really happened. You are one
of the last Grimms.”
-
Marie Kessler, “Pilot” (season 1, episode 1), Grimm, 28 October 2011.
𝔚hat is it about monsters that have fascinated us for
centuries? From The Odyssey and Beowulf
to Dracula and It, stories featuring the monstrous have always captured our
imaginations. We are drawn to them, and
yet at the same time fear them. In our
modern times, so-called ‘monster-of-the-week’ TV shows seem to air on every
channel or streaming service. In similar
fashion, the images in prodigy books attracted the general public five hundred
years ago. By comparing the two, we can
get a glimpse of what monsters embody for us.
NBC aired the last episode of Grimm in March of 2017, just as the exhibit I co-curated, Imperfecta, opened. Grimm
was a monster-of-the-week TV program that aired on NBC from 2011 to 2017. The show’s main character, Nick Burkhardt, is
a homicide detective in the Portland, Oregon, police department, and also a
“Grimm.” Grimms are descended from the
Brothers Grimm (of fairy-tale fame), and have the ability to see the dual
natures of “Wesen” (Ger., noun, “nature”), human-like creatures who can “woge”
(Ger., verb, “wave;” used in the show as “shift”) into animal-like beings with
animal-like traits.[i] Nick does not discover he is a Grimm until
his last-known living kin, Aunt Marie, is dying. She leaves him a trailer full of diaries
dating back to the beginning of the Grimm line, which detail the appearances,
traits, and methods of killing all sorts of Wesen. Traditionally, Grimms were hunters of Wesen,
although Nick takes a different approach.
Each week, armed (literally) with a plethora of specialized
Wesen-killing weaponry and the diaries, Nick must balance his heritage as a
Grimm with his job as a homicide detective and navigate the sometimes morally
grey areas of modern society.
Imperfecta opened
March 9, 2017. Since I work in a
historical medical library, the exhibit is focused on shifting perceptions over
the past 500 years about abnormal human development. It examines physical anomalies and their
causes from early beliefs in divine influence and supernatural causes to later
scientific and medical facts. Imperfecta encourages visitors to
question what it means to be ‘monstrous’.[ii] The exhibit starts off by introducing the
subject of “teratology” (scientific study of physiological abnormalities and
abnormal formations) using some of the prodigy books in our collection, which
illustrate the co-existence of supernatural and natural influences on physical
anomalies, and ends with late 19th-century clinical studies on
abnormal births. Supplementing our books
are several fetal specimens showcasing fatal birth defects.
Curating the exhibit forced me to think about what makes one
monstrous, and watching Grimm every week made me think about the ways the use
of the word “monster” has (or has not) changed in the past 500 years or so. Of course, many of the stories and Wesen we
encounter in Grimm are inspired by
Grimm’s fairy tales, which were collected over a period of years and can cite
medieval, classical, and earlier origins.
This illustrates that there is something to be said about our
long-standing fascination with monsters, and how even old stories still
captivate us today.
The Wesen in Grimm
reminded me of the creatures I encountered in the chapter entitled “Des
monstres” (“On monsters”) in a 1614 copy of Les
oeuvres d’Ambroise Paré (The works of
Ambroise Paré). While not medieval, “Des
monstres” echoes, and adds to, the travel literature and natural histories
concerning monstrous races popular during the medieval era. During the later Middle Ages and the Early
Modern period – no doubt partially due to the invention of the printing press –
texts known as prodigy or wonder books became popular.
The line between prodigy books and wonder books is fluid,
and I use the terms interchangeably here.
Prodigy books generally described monsters’ raisons d’être
as omens of some impending doom, often wrought upon the community as signs of
God’s displeasure. Wonder literature
generally took a more light-hearted view of monsters and presented them as
marvels of nature.
Just like the books Nick discovers in Aunt Marie’s trailer, wonder
books such as “Des monstres” catalogued strange creatures: fantastic beasts,
humans and animals with non-normative bodies, or some unholy combination of the
two. Often, the tales of these monsters
were allegedly eye-witness accounts.
However, unlike Aunt Marie’s books, prodigy books sought to
explain the origins of the monsters or simply acknowledge their existence. These books did not provide a ‘how-to’ for
killing monsters. Prodigy books regaled
the reader with tales of cities incurring the wrath of God (Ravenna, 1512);
women desiring pomegranates or strawberries while pregnant (the cause of birthmarks);
speaking sea monsters appearing prior to the death of popes; and women holding
frogs in their hands (to cure a fever, obviously) when they conceived.
The monsters in prodigy books are threats to humanity only in
the sense that they act as portents for some inevitable catastrophe, which was
likely caused by some moral deviance of humankind (if you subscribed to
contemporary Christian beliefs, that is) in the first place. But Grimm’s
monsters are different: they do not have supernatural origins; they are not
portents of doom. They are too much like
‘us’ and yet not; they are primal and uncontrollable and yet not; they are our
plumbers, shopkeepers, neighbors, friends; they are our thieves in the night,
murderers, and deepest desires and fears come to life.
Wesen’s true forms – their animalistic forms – can be seen
by non-Grimms only when the Wesen woge.
Unlike Paré’s monsters, the bodies of Grimm’s Wesen generally remain somewhat human in form when they
woge; it is the face which changes and becomes animalistic. The monsters in wonder books (those that are
part human, anyway) tend to have human heads and animal bodies. Which makes us more uncomfortable? The body of an animal with the face of a
human, or the body of a human with the face of an animal? Does the level of uneasiness depend on the
situation, the context, or on societal norms, customs, and beliefs?
In some cases, the Wesen in Grimm are only monstrous because
of their physical features, not because of their actions or seeming lack of morality. It is their differences in appearances, their
‘Otherness,’ which humans fear. However,
when woged, Wesen will do what is natural to that form, such as a Blutbad
(Ger., noun, “bloodbath”; in the show, wolf-like Wesen) chasing down a
Bauerschwein (Ger., noun, “farmer pig”; in the show, pig-like Wesen). Nick’s friend Monroe, a Blutbad, tries to
suppress these urges; he removes himself in situations where he may lose
control; even in human form, he does not eat meat. Do these instincts make Wesen monstrous? Do we think wolves are monstrous for doing
what comes naturally to them? Or is it
because Wesen look like ‘us’ much of the time that we expect them to act like
‘us’ all the time?
And that is the heart of the matter: We are simultaneously
drawn to, and repulsed by, monsters because they represent the dark, deep-down,
uninhibited parts of ourselves that we try to hide or ignore; because we see
our true selves mirrored in them – just as Wesen can see their true selves
mirrored in a Grimm’s eyes.
In a way, our monster-of-the-week TV programs are a 21st-century
version of wonder books. Through the
monstrous, we are given free rein to examine the darker side of society and
ourselves, using them as a ‘safe’ way to reveal our deepest fears and desires,
to question contemporary prejudices and injustices, to make political or
religious statements, to consider solutions to societal problems. In the end, we are all a little bit monstrous.
Selected
bibliography / Further reading
Asma, Stephen
T. On
Monsters: An Unnatural History of Our Worst Fears. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Brown, Nathan
Robert. The Mythlogy of Grimm: The Fairy Tale and Folklore Roots of the Popular
TV Show. New York: The Berkeley
Publishing Group, 2014.
Dahn, Tristan,
and Sara Ray. “Further Into
Imperfecta.” The College of Physicians of Philadelphia Digital Library. 8 September 2017.
Datson,
Lorraine and Park, Katharine. Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150 – 1750. New York: Zone Books, 1998.
Wilson,
Dudley. Signs and Portents: Monstrous Births from the Middle Ages to the
Enlightenment. New York: Routledge,
1993.
Digitized prodigy
books
Liceti,
Fortunio. De Monstrorvm Natvra, Cavssis, Et
Differentiis Libri Dvo: Multis Illuftrium Autorum Locis Difficillimus Explanatis.
2nd ed. Patavii: Apud Paulum Frambottum, 1634.
Lykosthenes,
Konrad, Hans Rudolf Manuel, and David Kandel. Prodigiorvm Ac Ostentorvm Chronicon: Quae
Praeter Naturae Ordinem, Motum, Et Operationem, Et In Svperioribus & His
Inferioribus Mundi Regionibus, Ab Exordio Mundi Usque Ad Haec Nostra Tempora,
Acciderunt .... Basileae: Per Henricvm Petri, 1557.
Paré, Ambroise,
Antonio Hernández Morejón, Barthelémy Macé, and Real Colegio de Cirugía de San
Carlos (Madrid). Les Oeuvres. 7e ed. rev. et augm. A Paris: Chez Barthelémy
Macé, 1614. [In the original French]
Paré, Ambroise.
The Workes of That Famous Chirurgion Ambrose
Parey. London: printed by R.
Cotes and Willi Du-gard, and are to be sold by John Clarke ..., 1649.
[Translated into English]
Rüff, Jakob. De conceptu, et generatione hominis: de
matrice et eius partibus, nec non de conditione infantis in vtero, &
grauidarum cura & officio : de partu & parturientium, infantiumqúe
cura omnifaria ... de sterilitatis causis diuersis, & de praecipuis
matricis aegritudinibus, omniumque horum curis varijs, libri sex. New York:
Editions Medicina Rara, 1972. [Modern reprint; the original was published in
1554]
Schenck, Johann
Georg. Monstrorum Historia Memorabilis, Monstrosa
Humanorum Partuum Miracula, Stupendis Conformationum Formulis Ab Vtero Materno
Enata, Viuis Exemplis, Obseruationibus, & Picturis, Referens: Accessit
Analogicum Argumentum De Monstris Brutis : Supplementi Loco Ad Obseruationes
Medicas Schenckianas Edita. Francofurti:
ex Officina typographica Matthiae Beckeri, impensis viduae Theodori de Bry,
& duorum eius filiorum, 1609.
[i]
For the purposes of this essay, I only look at your ‘run-of-the-mill,’ everyday
sort of animalistic Wesen – not extremist groups like Black Claw or the more
‘supernatural’ Wesen like Hexenbiests and Zauberbiests.
[ii] Many
medical terms used in the past are words that we find insensitive or cruel
today. Up until the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the term ‘monster’ was
used as a medical term to describe abnormal births (think conjoined twins,
people with Roberts syndrome or hydrocephaly) and other physical
anomalies. This is the manner in which
we use the term ‘monster’ in the exhibit Imperfecta. In this essay, I use the term ‘monster’ in a
more familiar sense: fantastic, often frightening beasts that aren’t human.
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