The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture

Description

This is a study of the culture of in dissection the English Renaissance, which informed intellectual enquiry in Europe for nearly 200 years. In this work, Jonathan Sawday explores the dark, morbid eroticism of the Renaissance anatomy theatre, and relates it to not only the great monuments of Renaissance art, but to the very foundation of the modern idea of knowledge. Though the dazzling displays of the "exterior" of the body in Renaissance literature and art have long been a subject of enquiry, this book considers the "interior" of the body, and what it meant to men and women in early modern culture. An interdisciplinary work, it re-assesses modern understanding of the literature and culture of the Renaissance and its conceptualization of the body within the domains of the medical and moral, the cultural and political.

"Throughout, "The Body Emblazoned is beautifully written. While being learned, and soaked in all manner of modern theoretical currents, the writing is lucid, alert, direct, entirely free of jargon, and a pleasure to read...a most absorbing and convincing work of scholarship, rich in insights, carefully argued and highly illuminating...it will be a major event in the cultural history of the early modern era."
-Roy Porter, The Wellcome Institute
"An astonishing piece of cultural history...Sawday recaptures the continuity of Renaissance knowledge in prose that is elegant and clear and that moves with equal facility through the history of literature, art, and science. This is a monumental work--one that will captivate scholars and general readers alike...A brilliant book."
-Mary Poovey, Johns Hopkins University
." . . a fascinating, learned and intelligent investigation of the culture of dissection in early modern Europe. . . . Sawday's fusion of wide-ranging scholarship with thoughtful analysis of poetry, art and cultural material will be useful to all students of the Renaissance."
-"Early Modern Literary Studies
"Numerous scholarly disciplines, methodologies, and perspectives. have been utilized in the creation of this fascinating account, which goes well beyond academic etiologizing and systemization and also conveys, in many places, a vivid sense of life as lived during this period. [I]n his provocative book, the heuristic richness of which I can only intimate in the sketchiest of ways, the author offers a fresh, often compelling perspective on the Renaissance and the early-modern period."
-"The Italian Quarterly
..."no one interested in the Renaissanceshould miss The Body Emblazoned.."
-"Studies in English Literature