The binary of aesthetic categories in the artistic narrative on medical topics

Abstract

The article is devoted to the binary of aesthetic categories of ―tragic‖, ―comic‖, ―beautiful‖ and ―ugly‖, ―harmonic‖ and ―chaotic‖, ―sublime‖ and ―low‖ in the work of Gavin Francis ―Amazing adventures inside the body. Great journey from head to toe‖. The article aims to trace how the specifics of the author's consciousness influence the deployment of the content of aesthetic categories in the contemporary artistic narrative on medical topics. The homodiegetic narrator-medical doctor expresses his own point of view on the perception of those aesthetic phenomena traditionally been perceived as disgusting, ugly, or low. The study finds out that the author actively applies the narrative strategy of intertextuality and intermediality, which add specific aestheticism to the narrative on medical topics. The narrator’s intention is to demonstrate his artistic tastes, formed on his own experience, and that way manipulating the reader's reception and persuading the reader that the medicine can be aesthetic. The most complete intermedial narrative strategy is revealed when the narrator appeals to the work of Leonardo da Vinci, who paid considerable attention to the study of anatomical structure and normal human physiology. G. Francis also appeals to the artistic works that were inspired by the surgical interventions. The specificity of a medical narrative leads to bringing up the issues that are tabooed in everyday discourse. The author does not scavenger the physiological details, but presents them in such a way – combining low and comic – that the reader doesn’t feel disgust. The binary of aesthetic categories is revealed through the peculiarities of perception by the recipient. The beauty is embodied in the complexity and economy of the structure of human body and its harmony, which is revealed through expediency. The author's intention is to make a suggestive effect on the reader, to give rise to his/her positive emotions, to form a special view on the human body as an aesthetic phenomenon. In the work the content of the aesthetic categories of ―beautiful‖, ―ugly‖, ―low‖, ―tragic‖ and ―comic‖ is reinterpreted and transformed, gaining new shades.