<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Reformation theology induced a profound thanatological crisis in the semiotics of the human being and the body. The Protestant Reformation discontinued numerous practices of intercession and communal ritual, and the early modern subject was left vulnerable in the face of death. The English Renaissance stage played out these anxieties within the larger context of the epistemological uncertainties of the age, employing violence and the anatomization of the body as representational techniques. While theories of language and tragic poetry oscillated between different ideas of <italic>imitatio</italic> (granting priority to the model) and <italic>mimesis</italic> (with preference for the creative and individual nature of the copy), the new anatomical interest and dissective perspectives also had their effects on the rhetorical practices of revenge tragedies. In the most shocking moments of these plays, rhetorical tropes suddenly turn into grisly reality, and figures of speech become demetaphorized, literalized. In a double anatomy of body and mind, English Renaissance revenge tragedy simultaneously employs and questions the emblematic and poetic traditions of representation, and the ensuing indeterminacy and ambiguity open paths for a new mimesis.</p></abstract>

Reformation theology induced a profound thanatological crisis in the semiotics of the human being and the body. The Protestant Reformation discontinued numerous practices of intercession and communal ritual, and the early modern subject was left vulnerable in the face of death. The English Renaissance stage played out these anxieties within the larger context of the epistemological uncertainties of the age, employing violence and the anatomization of the body as representational techniques. While theories of language and tragic poetry oscillated between different ideas of imitatio (granting priority to the model) and mimesis (with preference for the creative and individual nature of the copy), the new anatomical interest and dissective perspectives also had their effects on the rhetorical practices of revenge tragedies. In the most shocking moments of these plays, rhetorical tropes suddenly turn into grisly reality, and figures of speech become demetaphorized, literalized. In a double anatomy of body and mind, English Renaissance revenge tragedy simultaneously employs and questions the emblematic and poetic traditions of representation, and the ensuing indeterminacy and ambiguity open paths for a new mimesis.

Demetaphorization, Anatomy, and the Semiotics of the Reformation in Early Modern Revenge Tragedy

Studia Anglica Posnaniensia

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Reformation theology induced a profound thanatological crisis in the semiotics of the human being and the body. The Protestant Reformation discontinued...

Demetaphorization, Anatomy, and the Semiotics of the Reformation in Early Modern Revenge Tragedy

Published Online: Jul 09, 2019

Page range: 177 - 201

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/stap-2018-0008

Keywords
revenge tragedy, thanatological crisis, demetaphorization, anatomy, Reformation

© 2018 Attila Kiss, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Demetaphorization, Anatomy, and the Semiotics of the Reformation in Early Modern Revenge Tragedy

Published Online: Jul 09, 2019

Page range: 177 - 201

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/stap-2018-0008

Keywordsrevenge tragedy, thanatological crisis, demetaphorization, anatomy, Reformation

© 2018 Attila Kiss, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Keywords
revenge tragedy, thanatological crisis, demetaphorization, anatomy, Reformation