Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 1 of 1
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Dismemberment In The Medieval And Early Modern English Imaginary: The Performance Of Difference, Frederika Bain
Dismemberment In The Medieval And Early Modern English Imaginary: The Performance Of Difference, Frederika Bain
Late Tudor and Stuart Drama
The medieval and early modern English imaginary encompasses a broad range of negative and positive dismemberments, from the castration anxieties of Turk plays to the elite practices of distributive burial. This study argues that representations and instances of bodily fragmentation illustrated and performed acts of exclusion and inclusion, detaching not only limbs from bodies but individuals from identity groups. Within this context it examines questions of legitimate and illegitimate violence, showing that such distinctions largely rested upon particular acts’ assumed symbolic meanings. Specific chapters address ways dismemberments manifested gender, human versus animal nature, religious and ethnic identity, and social rank. …