Dismemberment in the Medieval and Early Modern English Imaginary

The medieval and early modern Englishimaginary encompasses a broad range ofnegative and positive dismemberments, fromthe castration anxieties of Turk plays to theelite practices of distributive burial. Thisstudy argues that representations andinstances of bodily fragmentation illustratedand performed acts of exclusion andinclusion, detaching not only limbs frombodies but individuals from identity groups.Within this context, it examines questions oflegitimate and illegitimate violence, showingthat such distinctions largely rested uponparticular acts’ assumed symbolic meanings.