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The impact of Vesalian anatomy on religious and literary culture from Philip Melanchthon to John Donne

The impact of Vesalian anatomy on religious and literary culture from Philip Melanchthon to John Donne
The impact of Vesalian anatomy on religious and literary culture from Philip Melanchthon to John Donne

This thesis examines the changing relationship between anatomy and religiously-based epistemology, in a period when representations of the human body stood poised between the older theological systems of Scholasticism, and the conceptual schemes of a still embryonic scientific mentality. Chapter one considers how public and published anatomy in England gave rise to the new genres of the 'anatomy' and 'analysis', literary forms frequently misunderstood by conventional genre criticism. Chapter two outlines the impact of Vesalianism on the Christian soul, showing how reinvestigation of classical anatomy gradually split apart an existing synthesis of classical and Christian thought. Following chapters focus on the responses of individual writers to the questions raised in this broad survey. Chapter three discusses the religious implications of Melanchton's anatomically informed De Anima, and Servetus' anatomically grounded heresy. In England, Thomas Nashe's insistently visceral writings offer the most fully developed and revealing example of Elizabethan anatomical rhetoric. Robert Burton's Anatomy, considered alongside contemporary instances of the 'anatomy' and 'analysis' genres, rather than as a monolithic literary conundrum, demonstrates how anatomy exerted influence on more conservative discourses. Chapter four and five examine anatomically inspired imagery in John Donne's nominally secular, and sacred writings, respectively. Donne displays alternate attraction to, and distrust of, the new human interior in rhetorically exploiting its novelty, solidity, and intricacy to 'flesh out' the religious thinking which Vesalianism implicitly subverts. Discussion of Donne's unease about bodily resurrection and body-soul relations develops the issues raised in Chapter Two. Donne's sermons are related to England's wider anatomical culture via their topical glances at the Lenten 'dissective season' of Stuart London.

University of Southampton
Sugg, Richard John
6e6283bf-4d14-4ae4-9d74-888cbf21a418
Sugg, Richard John
6e6283bf-4d14-4ae4-9d74-888cbf21a418

Sugg, Richard John (2001) The impact of Vesalian anatomy on religious and literary culture from Philip Melanchthon to John Donne. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.

Record type: Thesis (Doctoral)

Abstract

This thesis examines the changing relationship between anatomy and religiously-based epistemology, in a period when representations of the human body stood poised between the older theological systems of Scholasticism, and the conceptual schemes of a still embryonic scientific mentality. Chapter one considers how public and published anatomy in England gave rise to the new genres of the 'anatomy' and 'analysis', literary forms frequently misunderstood by conventional genre criticism. Chapter two outlines the impact of Vesalianism on the Christian soul, showing how reinvestigation of classical anatomy gradually split apart an existing synthesis of classical and Christian thought. Following chapters focus on the responses of individual writers to the questions raised in this broad survey. Chapter three discusses the religious implications of Melanchton's anatomically informed De Anima, and Servetus' anatomically grounded heresy. In England, Thomas Nashe's insistently visceral writings offer the most fully developed and revealing example of Elizabethan anatomical rhetoric. Robert Burton's Anatomy, considered alongside contemporary instances of the 'anatomy' and 'analysis' genres, rather than as a monolithic literary conundrum, demonstrates how anatomy exerted influence on more conservative discourses. Chapter four and five examine anatomically inspired imagery in John Donne's nominally secular, and sacred writings, respectively. Donne displays alternate attraction to, and distrust of, the new human interior in rhetorically exploiting its novelty, solidity, and intricacy to 'flesh out' the religious thinking which Vesalianism implicitly subverts. Discussion of Donne's unease about bodily resurrection and body-soul relations develops the issues raised in Chapter Two. Donne's sermons are related to England's wider anatomical culture via their topical glances at the Lenten 'dissective season' of Stuart London.

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Published date: 2001

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Local EPrints ID: 464414
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/464414
PURE UUID: e0345e22-7ffe-4871-8654-ecd6475c30e8

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Date deposited: 04 Jul 2022 23:35
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 19:30

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Author: Richard John Sugg

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