ABSTRACT
Thelatemedievalandearlymodembodyhasbeenattractingcriticalattention forwelloveradecadenow.Poststructuralism,evolvingbeyondsemiotics (thoughneverabandoningitaltogether)hassentcriticsdownpathswhich mergethesemioticwiththesomatic.Incorporatingtheprinciplesofsemiology asameansofinterpretingvarietiesofdiscoursesaroundthebody,criticshave increasinglyresistedassumptionsaboutthegroundingofcultureinlanguage withitsuniversalsystemofcodesandstructures(andthereforeultimately unifyingobjectives)towardsthealtogethermorebumpyterrainofbodily signifyingpractices.Onitsjourneyfromlinguistictosomaticsignification,the bodyhaswoundrounditselfaspiralofproliferatingandcompetingdiscourses. ToquoteKeirElamquotingJuliaKristeva:
[t]hereactionagainstthelinguistictumanditsprophylacticsterilizingof thebodyhasbeenwhatwemighttermthecorporealtum,whichhas shiftedattentionfromthewordtotheflesh,fromthesemantictothe somatic'- atum'pre-announcedinJuliaKristeva'snotionofthepreverbalandpre-semanticsemioticchora,thebattlegroundofthesubject's competingbodilydriveswhich'makesthesemiotizedbodyaplaceof permanentscission.' (1996,143)1
Culturalhistorians,literaryscholarsandfeministtheorists,havingrescuedthe bodyfromthemarginsofcriticalattentionandhavingintensivelyinvestigated itanditspartsfromthepointofview(forexample)ofthematerial,theludic, thecamivalesqueandthegrotesque,arenowturningtheirattentiontoareas stillunincorporatedintothemainstreamofpoststructuraliststudiesofpremodemcorporealmateriality.2Indeed,thefertilefieldofstudiesonthebody moretraditionallyassociatedwiththehumansciences-biology,anthropology, sociology,medicine-isnowbeingthoroughlypickedoverformultipleand multilayeredsemiotic-somaticmeaning,whilethetotalizingimpulseof semiologyhasnowmoreorlessbeensupersededbytheorieswhichstress instability,plurality,scissionanddiscontinuity-andwhichreinscribethebody intonarrativesofdifferenceandotherness.Inwhathecallsthe'bodyboom'in Shakespearestudies,KeirElamlistsa'ghostarmyofearlymodemorganisms
2NINATAUNTONANDDARRYLLGRANTLEY
toanatomize.TheShakespeareancriticalindustryhasbecomethe ShakespeareanCorps'(1996,142,144).Theboomhasextendedwaybeyond thebodiesinShakespeare.Embracinginterdisciplinarityandpostmodernism, writersontheearlymodernbodycontinuetomaketheirownsignificant contributiontoacorpusofworkstravellingfullcirclefromrejectionof totalizingphilosophieswhichassumetheuniversalintheparticulartoadeeper appreciationoftheunstable,thediscontinuous,thefragmentedandthe marginalinpre-modernculture.Forexample,asJonathanSawdayhas discovered,theearlymodernvogueforanatomies,bothtextualandcorporeal, couldbetokenbothaninterestintheworkingsoftheinsidesandoutsidesof human(andanimal)bodies,andfearsthattextual/corporealparts,once atomizedandanatomized,neverreassembleintothewholethattheyonce were.InTheBodyEmblazoned,heexplorestheparadoxicalfunctionof dissection,whichprovidedameansbothofexpandingknowledgeofthebody, andofbreakingupthephilosophicalandreligiousbodyofknowledgewhose goalwasuniversalityandcompleteness(1995,1-15).
