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Murder after Death : Literature and Anatomy in Early Modern England / Richard Sugg.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2018]Copyright date: ©2007Description: 1 online resource (280 p.) : 1 table, 13 halftonesContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9781501729973
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 820.9/3561 22
LOC classification:
  • PR428.H78
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: The Invading Body -- 1. Between the Skin and the Bone: Anatomy, Violence, and Transition -- 2. "I'll eat the rest of th'anatomy": Dissection and Cannibalism -- 3. The Body as Proof -- 4. The Split Body -- 5. Vivisection, Violence, and Identity -- Conclusion: The Anatomy of the Soul -- Appendix 1. English Literary Anatomies to 1650 -- Appendix 2. Anatomy Allusions in Dated London Sermons to 1642 -- List of Abbreviations -- Notes -- Index
Summary: Just as museum exhibits of plastinated corpses, television dramas about forensics, and books about the eventual fate of human remains provoke interest and generate ethical debates today, anatomy was a topic of fascination-and autopsies a spectator pastime-in England from the mid-Elizabethan era through the outbreak of civil war. Rather than regard such preoccupations as purely macabre, Richard Sugg sees them as precursors of a profoundly new scientific and cultural discourse.Tracing the influence of continental anatomy on English literature across the period, Sugg begins his exploration with the essentially sacralizing aspects of dissection—as expressed, for instance, in the search for the anatomical repository of the soul—before detailing ways in which science and religion diverged from and eventually opposed each other. In charting this transition, Sugg draws his evidence from the fine detail of literary language, moving from sermons to plays, medical textbooks to sonnets, and from sensational short tales to Thomas Nashe's proto-novel The Unfortunate Traveller.As Sugg shows, the study of anatomy first offered to positively revitalize many areas of religious rhetoric. In time, however, the rising forces of early scientific enquiry transformed the body into an increasingly alien and secular entity. Within this evolution the author finds a remarkably rich, subtle, and unstable set of attitudes, with different forms of violence, different versions of the interior body, and implicit social, religious, and psychological stances variously cooperating or competing for supremacy.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781501729973

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: The Invading Body -- 1. Between the Skin and the Bone: Anatomy, Violence, and Transition -- 2. "I'll eat the rest of th'anatomy": Dissection and Cannibalism -- 3. The Body as Proof -- 4. The Split Body -- 5. Vivisection, Violence, and Identity -- Conclusion: The Anatomy of the Soul -- Appendix 1. English Literary Anatomies to 1650 -- Appendix 2. Anatomy Allusions in Dated London Sermons to 1642 -- List of Abbreviations -- Notes -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

Just as museum exhibits of plastinated corpses, television dramas about forensics, and books about the eventual fate of human remains provoke interest and generate ethical debates today, anatomy was a topic of fascination-and autopsies a spectator pastime-in England from the mid-Elizabethan era through the outbreak of civil war. Rather than regard such preoccupations as purely macabre, Richard Sugg sees them as precursors of a profoundly new scientific and cultural discourse.Tracing the influence of continental anatomy on English literature across the period, Sugg begins his exploration with the essentially sacralizing aspects of dissection—as expressed, for instance, in the search for the anatomical repository of the soul—before detailing ways in which science and religion diverged from and eventually opposed each other. In charting this transition, Sugg draws his evidence from the fine detail of literary language, moving from sermons to plays, medical textbooks to sonnets, and from sensational short tales to Thomas Nashe's proto-novel The Unfortunate Traveller.As Sugg shows, the study of anatomy first offered to positively revitalize many areas of religious rhetoric. In time, however, the rising forces of early scientific enquiry transformed the body into an increasingly alien and secular entity. Within this evolution the author finds a remarkably rich, subtle, and unstable set of attitudes, with different forms of violence, different versions of the interior body, and implicit social, religious, and psychological stances variously cooperating or competing for supremacy.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Apr 2024)