Revealing Bodies: Anatomy, Allegory, and the Grounds of Knowledge in the Long Eighteenth Century

239 Pages·2012·4.93 MB·English

by  Erin M. Goss

Revealing Bodies
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T R A N S I T S :
LITERATURE, THOUGHT & CULTURE 1650–1850
Series Editor
Greg Clingham
Bucknell University
Transits is the next horizon. Th is series of books, essays and monographs aims to extend recent achieve-
ments in eighteenth-century studies, and to publish excellent work on any aspects of the literature,
thought, and culture of the years 1650–1850. Without ideological or methodological restrictions,
Transits seeks to provide transformative readings of the literary, cultural, and historical interconnec-
tions between Britain, Europe, the Far East, Oceania, and the Americas in the long eighteenth century,
and as they extend down to the present time. In addition to literature and history, such “global” per-
spectives might entail considerations of time, space, nature, economics, politics, environment, and ma-
terial culture, and might necessitate the development of new modes of critical imagination, which we
welcome. But the series does not thereby repudiate the local and the national, for original new work on
particular writers and readers in particular places in time continues to be the bedrock of the discipline.
Titles in the Series
Figures of Memory: From the Muses to Eighteenth-Century British Aesthetics
Zsolt Komáromy
Horace Walpole’s Letters: Masculinity and Friendship in the Eighteenth Century
George E. Haggerty
Th omas Sheridan’s Career and Infl uence: An Actor in Earnest
Conrad Brunström
Th e Self as Muse: Narcissism and Creativity in the German Imagination 1750–1830
Alexander Mathäs
Tobias Smollett in the Enlightenment: Travels through France, Italy, and Scotland
Richard J. Jones
Modern Antiques: Th e Material Past in England, 1660–1780
Barrett Kalter
A Race of Female Patriots: Women and Public Spirit on the British Stage, 1688–1745
Brett D. Wilson
Th e Family, Marriage, and Radicalism in British Women’s Novels of the 1790s: Public Aff ection and
Private Affl iction
Jennifer Golightly
Feminism and the Politics of Travel After the Enlightenment
Yaël Schlick
John Galt: Observations and Conjectures on Literature, History, and Society
Regina Hewitt
Performing Authorship in Eighteenth-Century English Periodicals
Manushag N. Powell
Excitable Imaginations: Eroticism and Reading in Britain, 1660–1760
Kathleen Lubey
Th e French Revolution Debate and the British Novel, 1790–1814: Th e Struggle for History’s Authority
Morgan Rooney
Rococo Fiction in France, 1600–1715: Seditious Frivolity
Allison Stedman
Revealing Bodies: Anatomy, Allegory, and the Grounds of Knowledge in the Long Eighteenth Century
Erin M. Goss
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T R A N S I T S
Revealing Bodies
A N ATO M Y, A L L E G O R Y, A N D T H E
G R O U N D S O F K N OW L E D G E I N T H E
LO N G E I G H T E E N T H C E N T U R Y
E R I N M . G O S S
L E W I S B U R G
B U C K N E L L U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S
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Published by Bucknell University Press
Co-published with Th e Rowman & Littlefi eld Publishing Group, Inc.
4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706
www.rowman.com
10 Th ornbury Road, Plymouth PL6 7PP, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2013 by Erin M. Goss
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by
any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval
systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who
may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Goss, Erin., 1976–
Revealing bodies : anatomy, allegory, and the grounds of knowledge in the long
eighteenth century / Erin Goss.
p. cm. — (Transits literature, thought & culture)
ISBN 978-1-61148-394-9 (alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-61148-395-6
1. Human body in literature. 2. Human body (Philosophy) 3. Blake, William,
1757–1827. 4. Burke, Edmund, 1729–1797. 5. Tighe, Mary, 1772–1810. I. Title.
PN56.B2G67 2013
820.9'3561—dc23 2012029508
™
Th e paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
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For my father, Fred Goss,
who taught me to look at the sky
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CONTENTS
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Revealing Bodies 1
1 Naming the Body 17
2 Bodies without Bodies: Burke’s Sublime Corporeality 49
3 What Is Called Corporeal: Blake and the Body’s Origin 87
4 Bodies of Meaning: Tighe and the Body’s Apotheosis 119
Conclusion: Th e Body as Allegory 155
Notes 167
Works Cited 203
Index 217
About the Author 223
[ vii ]
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
1.1 F irst plate illustrating the whole human skeleton.
From Andreas Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica
(Basel, 1543). 29
1.2 Plate illustrating the human skeleton, lateral delineation.
From Andreas Vesalius, De humanic orporis fabrica
(Basel, 1543). 30
1.3 Plate illustrating the human skeleton, posterior view.
From Andreas Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica
(Basel, 1543). 31
1.4 William Hogarth. Th e Reward of Cruelty (Plate IV of
Th e Four Stages of Cruelty, 1751). 33
3.1 William Blake. Th e Book of Urizen, Plate 10 (Copy G, 1818). 108
3.2 William Blake. Th e Book of Urizen, Plate 3 (Copy G, 1818). 110
C.1 Gwen Hardie. Body 12.09.10, 2010. 163
C.2 Gwen Hardie. Body 05.01.08, 2008. 163
[ ix ]
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