Product Description

'A major event in the cultural history of the modern era ... beautifully written, rich in insights, and a pleasure to read. A most absorbing and illuminating work of scholarship.' - Roy Porter, The Wellcome Institute

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #360858 in Books
• Published on: 1996-10-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 376 pages

Review
'An astonishing piece of cultural history ... a monumental work - one that will captivate scholars and general readers alike. A brilliant book.' - Mary Poovey, John Hopkins University

'Beautifully written and a pleasure to read ... a most absorbing and convincing work of scholarship, rich in insights, carefully argued, and highly illuminating ... it will be a major event in the cultural history of the early modern era.' - Roy Porter, The Wellcome Institute

From the Back Cover
The Body Emblazoned is a compelling study of the culture of dissection in the English Renaissance which informed intellectual enquiry in Europe for nearly two hundred years. In this outstanding work Jonathan Sawday explores the dark, morbid eroticism of the Renaissance anatomy theatre. He traces the often illicit activities of the great anatomists of the period, linking their work to a wider cultural discourse which embraces not only the great monuments of Renaissance art, but also the very foundation of a modern idea of knowledge. The Body Emblazoned provides a richly interdisciplinary framework for conceptualizing the body in literature, art, and the domains of the religious, the moral, the medical and the political. THE BODY EMBLAZONED An outstanding work of interdisciplinary scholarship and a fascinating read, The Body Emblazoned is a study of the Renaissance culture of dissection which informed intellectual enquiry in Europe for nearly two hundred years. Though the dazzling displays, in Renaissance art and literature, of the exterior of the body have long been a subject of enquiry, Jonathan Sawday considers in detail the interior of the body, and what it meant to men and women in early modern culture. Sawday links the frequently illicit activities of the great anatomists of the period, to whose labours we are indebted for so much of our understanding of the structure and operation of the human body, to a wider cultural discourse which embraces not only the great monuments of Renaissance art, but the very foundation of a modern idea of knowledge. A richly interdisciplinary work, The Body Emblazoned reassesses modern understanding not only of the literature and culture of the Renaissance, but of the modern organization of knowledge which is now so familiar that it is only rarely questioned.