The Wounded Body
Memory, Language and the Self from Petrarch to Shakespeare
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Beschreibung
This edited collection explores the image of the wound as a ‘cultural symptom’ and a literary-visual trope at the core of representations of a new concept of selfhood in Early Modern Italian and English cultures, as expressed in the two complementary poles of poetry and theatre. The semantic field of the wounded body concerns both the image of the wound as a traumatic event, which leaves a mark on someone’s body and soul (and prompts one to investigate its causes and potential solutions), and the motif of the scar, which draws attention to the fact that time has passed and urges those who look at it to engage in an introspective and analytical process. By studying and describing the transmission of this metaphoric paradigm through the literary tradition, the contributors show how the image of the bodily wound—from Petrarch’s representation of the Self to the overt crisis that affects the heroes and the poetic worlds created by Ariosto and Tasso, Spenser and Shakespeare—could respond tothe emergence of Modernity as a new cultural feature..
Fabrizio Bondi is Fellow of Italian Literature at Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, Italy.
Massimo Stella is Lecturer in Comparative Literatures and Theory of Literature at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy.
Andrea Torre is Associate Professor of Italian Literature at Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, Italy.
This edited collection explores the image of the wound as a ‘cultural symptom’ and a literary-visual trope at the core of representations of a new concept of selfhood in Early Modern Italian and English cultures, as expressed in the two complementary poles of poetry and theatre. The semantic field of the wounded body concerns both the image of the wound as a traumatic event, which leaves a mark on someone’s body and soul (and prompts one to investigate its causes and potential solutions), and the motif of the scar, which draws attention to the fact that time has passed and urges those who look at it to engage in an introspective and analytical process. By studying and describing the transmission of this metaphoric paradigm through the literary tradition, the contributors show how the image of the bodily wound—from Petrarch’s representation of the Self to the overt crisis that affects the heroes and the poetic worlds created by Ariosto and Tasso, Spenser and Shakespeare—could respond tothe emergence of Modernity as a new cultural feature.
Brings together Italian and English Renaissance studies Provides context for the transition from Renaissance to Early Modern in terms of politics, religion, and literature Engages with key authors like Petrarch, Dante, Shakespeare, Tasso, Spenser, and more
Autor*in
Fabrizio Bondi
Themen in »The Wounded Body«
imagery bodily wound Italian literature Anglophone literature visual arts print culture Early Modern literature Renaissance early Christianity self and sovereignty
Stimmen zu »The Wounded Body«
“Wounded words, characters, authors, and regimes traverse an edgy early modern landscape in these compelling essays by a new generation of European scholars. All told, the collection offers a radical new understanding of selfhood and identity.”
—Jane Tylus, Yale University, USA
“This is a compelling and innovative book. Around a literary and visual image—the wound, the scar —it reconstructs the traces of a turning point in the perception of selfhood and in the construction of memory that affected Italy and England at the beginning of early modern times.”
—Lina Bolzoni, Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, Italy
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