Representations of the Body in French Renaissance Poetry

Representations of the Body in French Renaissance Poetry examines the poetic debate over the nature and importance of the body in the sixteenth century, a subject about which Renaissance poets had a great deal to say. Focusing on the evolution of dissection and physical examination of the human body, Karen Sorsby presents a detailed and sophisticated understanding of the language of the body as it is used by poets such as Maurice Scève, Du Bellay, Ronsard, Louise Labé, Agrippa d'Aubigné, and Du Bartas. A guiding assumption of this study is that sixteenth-century French poets considered the acquisition of self-knowledge to be necessary to the understanding of man. They relied on anatomy in their poetry to provide a sense of body and soul, which they believed to be necessary to acquire self-knowledge.