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THE INELUENCE OF EARLY MODERN THEORIES OF
GOVERNANCE: CORPOREAL IMAGES AND
THE REPRESENTATION OF IHE BODY POLITIC
IN THE 1608 QUARTO
———~o»—___
One of the conclusions I drew in the previous chapter was that certain
rhetorical figures defining the relationship between the characters during the
public ceremony of the love contest scene in the 1608 Pied Bull Quarto evoke
the “body politic,” a metaphoric expression denoting the Early Modern idea
of the state. Extending this thread of thought, this chapter focuses on the use
of corporeal or body-related metaphors throughout the play and argues that
the initial references to the human body develop into a whole image cluster.
This series of rethorical figures signals the social function of the characters,
which allows for an “anthropomorphic mapping”*” of the characters’ relation
to the monarch.
Since the scope of this chapter extends to the interpretation and literary
representation of various Early Modern notions related to the sociopolitical
aspects of royal power, it seems sensible to consider briefly the basic concepts
of governance in the Jacobean period, especially in the mediated forms in
which they appeared on the Early Modern stage.*** Shakespearean drama offers
many answers to the question concerning what the ideal monarch was like in
the first decade of seventeenth-century England, but these answers originate
from two main principles of acceptable rulership.*” One of them is based
on the medieval idea that political authority derives from God, whereas the
323 | am grateful to my supervisor, Professor Tibor Fabiny for nurturing my thoughts with this
expression, which I believe was his own invention.
324 My short summary is based on the following two articles: Michael Hattaway: Tragedy and
Political Authority, in Claire Elizabeth McEachern (ed.): The Cambridge Companion to
Shakespearean Tragedy, Cambridge, Cambdrige University Press, 2002, 105-122; and György
Endre Szönyi: Matching the “Falles of Princes” and “Machiavell.” Tradition and Subversion
in the Historiography and Iconography of Shakespeare’s Histories, in György E. Szönyi¬
Rowland Wymer (eds.): The Iconography of Power. Ideas and Images of Rulership on the English
Renaissance Stage, Szeged, JATE Press, 2000, 5-31.
325 Szőnyi: Matching, 7.
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