Abstract:

In Western culture production, machines, robots and androids are not the product of high-tech, often directly linked to post-humanist speech. It is possible to encounter such examples throughout the Western cultural history. The golem of Jewish mythology, mechanical babies formed by the influence of Illumination materialism, or automates like the Turkish players of satellite, come to us as examples that prevail the post-Humanist speech of today. The common feature of these examples is that they move from the image of a person and tell the person. Nevertheless, these are absent of the most fundamental characteristic that the Illuminating thought gives to man: the status of self and the desire, power or will to be the hero of its own history are strange to the figures we count. However, 18. The posthumanist speech of the century thought is a source of literature, not of enlightenment, but of romanticism. This study will follow the posthumanist answers given by Romantic literature to the Illuminating Thought. Freud’s “unified” reading. Figures such as the automatic Olympia of Hoffmann's Sand Man (1816) or Mary Shelley's anonymous creature in Frankenstein (1818) are assessed in this scope and highlight the artificial human motivation of Romanticism. In the literature of this time, the automates, golems, homunkules, and androids are always in the same axis, and although sometimes their creators are out of man’s control, they actually share the fate of their cultural pioneers: either they are deprived of the status of essence by their creators, or they are placed on the side of the evil as a product of the effort to heal a reverse man. In both cases, they are sentenced to remain as the other.

Keywords:

Abstract:

Machines, robots and androids in the cultural production of the West are not often the products of high technology, which is directly associated with the posthumanist discourse. It is possible to encounter such examples throughout the cultural history of the West. The golem of the Jewish mythology, mechanical dolls shaped by the effect of Enlightenment materialism, or automatons such as the Turk, chess player, are examples that prioritize today’s discourse of posthumanism. The common eature of these examples is that they act from the image of the human and emulate it. Nevertheless, they lack the most basic attribute that Enlightenment thought has bestowed on human being: Subject status and the desire, power or will to be the hero of their own history are unfamiliar with the figures mentioned above. However, it is the literature of Romanticism, not Enlightenment, that is primarily responsible for popularizing the posthumanist discourse of 18th century thought. This study will track the posthumanist responses of Romantic literature to the mechanical thinking of the Enlightenment. The figures in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s tales, such as the animated doll-woman in his The Sandman (1816), which is also known by Freud’s reading of the “uncanny”, or in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818) are evaluated in this context, and they all emphasize the artificial human motif of Romanticism. Automatons, golems, homunculi, androids always move on the same axis and share their creator’s fate, even if they are sometimes out of control. Artificial bodies are located on the dark side of the existence, as they are doomed to remain as the other of the human being.