Imagined Individuals: A Body of One’s Own

Abstract

In contrast to post-Cartesian notions of selfhood, the early modern subject was effected by discourses and power structures beyond itself. He or she emerged from within a framework of domination, loyalty, and courtly dependence, and was interpellated, or brought forth, by various historically and culturally contingent discourses. At the same time, these structures of dependency were gradually challenged by discourses that claimed self-determinancy and independence from worldly relations. This did not, however, imply autonomy from all forms of order; on the contrary, worldly dependencies were being denigrated in favour of an exquisitely intimate relationship to God which, via internalization, constituted an interior that was seen as the locus of the divine in man. God and the interior self entered into such a close relationship that divinely sanctioned actions appeared as self-determined decisions of the subject. Apparently, re-definitions in the perception and configuration of the human body as they have been discussed before somehow offered themselves for adoption by the advocates of these notions. In this context, the Faerie Queene’s quest for selfhood and its concomitant refashioning of the body provided a literary representation of the performative assumption of different subject positions through discourses and practices uttered on various levels of early modern societies, but with a decided emphasis toward the allegedly self-determined, Protestant subject.KeywordsCourtly BehaviourOutward AppearanceReligious DiscourseWorldly RelationBody PracticeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.