Close encounters: “Monstrous” bodies and literary knowledge in early modern France

Abstract

In this essay, I study a series of moments from early modern literature in which characters confront “monstrous” bodies or abnormal bodies. I study how these scenes raise issues about the reading of the non-normal body. I trace the ways in which the interpretation of the non-normal body poses problems for fiction, and for the relationship between epistemological authority, on the one hand, and the knowledge generated by literature, on the other hand. I suggest that one way to understand the enduring appeal of the “monstrous” is as a motivating factor that generates innovation, both thematic and formal, in art. I argue that the “monstrous” both motivates literary originality and threatens the categories through which literary authority is articulated. My general argument is that we cannot understand the history of the monstrous without attention to the history of literature – and vice versa.