ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the uneasy relationship between body and text is a persistent concern for Shakespeare whenever he attempts to represent English history in the theater. It shows the Shakespeare repeatedly turns to the poetics of the blazon in order to smooth the transition between body and text. Critics of the blazon in Renaissance poetry, especially Nancy Vickers and Lynn Enterline, have called attention to the ways in which the blazon enables a mode of poetic expression by performing a figurative act of violence on the body. Equally important, the transformation of body into text ostensibly sought for and enacted by the blazon particularly in Ovid and Petrarch is never complete. A similar transformation from body to text is a recurring event in the action of play itself, and these blazonic moments often occur in contexts. The chapter discusses that Shakespeare often foregrounds the experience of sound in order to undermine the conventional association between musical and political harmony.
