The Body in Parts: Fantasies of Corporeality in Early Modern Europe

ISBN-13: 9780415916943 / Angielski / Miękka / 1997 / 376 str.

Carla Mazzio; David Hillman

Opis

Examines how the body - its organs, limbs, viscera - was represented in the literature and culture of early modern Europe. Why did 16th and 17th century medical, religious, and literary texts portray the body part by part, rather than as an entity? And what does this view of the human body tell us about society's view of part and whole, of individual and universal in the early modern period? As this volume demonstrates, the symbolics of body parts challenges our assumptions about the body as a fundamental Renaissance image of self, society, and nation. The book presents work by: Nancy Vickers on corporeal fragments; Peter Stallybrass on the foot; Marjorie Garber on joints; Stephen Greenblatt on bodily marking and mutilation; Gail Kern Paster on the nervous system; Michael Schoenfeldt on the belly; Jeffrey Masten on the anus; Katherine Park on the clitoris; Kathryn Schwartz on the breast; Sergei Lobanov-Rostovsky on the eye; Katherine Rowe on the hands; Scott Stevens on the heart and brain; Carla Mazzio on the tongue; and David Hillman on the entrails.

Recenzje

"The book is helpfully organized... The essays are consistently innovative..." -- Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England 1999
"...these essays are incredibly learned, filled with analyses of anatomical treatises, ancient medical encyclopedias and commentaries on scripture." -- The New York Times
"The Body in Parts is a must-read not only for those interested in the culture of early modern Europe, but for anyone interested in thinking about the modern and post-modern body as well. Its claims for the importance of the body and its discourses for understanding the literary, scientific, political and religious culture of early modern Europe are persuasive and its range--literally from head to toe--and learning admirable. A significant contribution to ongoing work on gender, sexuality and the body." -- Karen Newman, Brown University
"The Body in Parts expands the knowledge of this crucial period of history through the exploration of the social, symbolic, and scientific fragmentation of the body, This book will appeal to scholars interested in literature, history, art, and development of scientific knowledge in the early modern era." -- Sixteenth Century Journal

Spis treści

I. Introduction: Individual Parts I. Subjecting the Part 2. Members Only 3. Out of Joint 4. Sins of the Tongue 5. Visceral Knowledge 6. Nervous Tension II. Sexing the Part 7. Is the Fundament a Grave? 8. Missing the Breast 9. The Rediscovery of the Clitoris 10. Taming the Basilisk III. Divining the Part II. Mutilation and Meaning 12. Fables of the Belly in Early Modern England 13. Sacred Heart and Secular Brain 14. God's handy worke IV. Parting Words 15. Footnotes

O autorze

Carla Mazzio and David Hillman are both Teaching Fellows in the Department of English at Harvard.