Abstract
The perception of body has shifted significance from a commonsensical and everyday fact to a historicized concept within the past century. However, the extremes of the biological or social theorizations concerning body have been mutually dismissive of the other and this has robbed them both of their capacity to relate to the lived body of experience. The last model for considering body, however, has been expounded in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze whose postmodern ontology brings the theories of the biological and social body together in a synthesis so as to show how they relate to each other and to the holistic aspect of embodiment called territorialization, which is closer to the reality of the lived body than both of them. In this manner, Deleuze introduces a progress into the study of human body particularly as the object which we not only “have” but actually “are,” that is to say, the deep relation the body has to identity. This philosophical advancement has reverberations in other fields such as woman’s studies and literature. Thus, female body and literary texts can be scrutinized from a Deleuzian standpoint with two aims; the first one analyzing the extent to which the literary texts can claim greatness by mirroring the reality of being, and the second one to investigate the manipulation of female body and identity in literature. This paper aims to provide evidence for the improvements Deleuze’s philosophy has introduced into conceptualizations of body, female body and identity in the first place and in the second place how Donne’s love poetry in his Songs and Sonets , as one proven example of great literature, is a mirror to “being,” regarding the femininity of his woman-beloved through his treatment of the territorialization of the her body and identity.
Highlights
This article pursues two diverse yet closely related aspirations
That Deleuze is one of the seminal philosophers of our time is beyond doubt and depicted in the way Foucault, himself one of the most influential scholars of the post-World War II period according to Encyclopedia Britannica, deems the twentieth century capable of being called a Deleuzian century
Our body is related to its surroundings; this means that it is related to everything physical or not, that it might be in contact and interacting with; and, as already mentioned, the whole of all the relations a specific body makes in different directions is called by its “assemblage(s).”
Summary
This article pursues two diverse yet closely related aspirations. The first one includes an attempt to explicate that aspect of the philosophy of one of the greatest of French postmodern philosophers Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995) which sheds light upon the current sociological studies of body, its relation to identity and its probable links with literature in an effort to attest that it is certainly a progress in this field. That Deleuze is one of the seminal philosophers of our time is beyond doubt and depicted in the way Foucault, himself one of the most influential scholars of the post-World War II period according to Encyclopedia Britannica, deems the twentieth century capable of being called a Deleuzian century He is an anti-rationalist and anti-essentialist philosopher who identifies an alternative vein of philosophical occupation in philosophers like Stoics, Hume, Spinoza, Nietzsche and Bergson that stands against the state philosophy of the likes of Plato, Kant and Hegel which is in service of power. This article is about two revolutionaries in literature and philosophy and the manner the latter can shed lights on the former
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callMore From: International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
