The body is perhaps our oldest and most reliable metaphor. It can
symbolize a totality, as in the student body,
or
the diplomatic corps,
and its various parts denote
distinct functions, hence the head of state,
the
heart of the matter,
and informational artery.
As the fundamental vehicle of human experience, it is a system we know
intimately well and a tool through which we are able to interact with
the world at large Although many try to downplay the physical
dimension of human existence, favoring the spiritual or intellectual,
the fact is we are not abstract beings; we are very much incarnate.
In the essay does its best to maintain that its concern is with the
mind; that the body is a sheet of plain glass through which the soul
looks straight and clear, and, save for one or two passions such as
desire and greed, is null, negligible, and non-existent.
Although the body must, and does, endure all the physical sensations
that only the mind is allegedly able to assimilate and communicate,
there appears to be little account of the body's extensive and
perpetual state of experience. The reasons behind the suppression of
bodily life in the Western tradition are multiple and complex, and
they extend back to the battle against paganism, the rise of Christian
asceticism, and the enduring tyranny of Cartesian thought. However,
the centrality of the physical experience in human life did not escape
a number of writers who, thwarting convention and often scandalizing
society, refocused attention on what is at the heart of being human:
The life of the body.
For some authors the body's metaphoric role takes on
concrete significance. Beyond its usefulness as analog or figure of
comparison it lies at the core of both the creative experience and its
ultimate product. Indeed, there are those authors who envision the
connection shared by literature and the body to be so intimate and
congruous that they cannot, or will not, distinguish between the
two. These are writers of the body
in the sense that
they seek to recreate textually what is experienced physically. This
creative objective of willing the text not only to describe but also
to imitate a living body constitutes the principal thrust of what I
call a somatic text.
Such a piece of writing, be it
prose or poetry, is involved with far more than mere imagery or
corporeal language. In essence, the text is a realized metaphor in so
far as it functions, structurally, as a human body.
Basing myself on such theorists and philosophers of the
body as Marcel Merleau-Ponty and Brian Turner, I propose to outline my
theory of the somatic text,
explain its key elements,
and present some of the writers that have authored such texts. One of
them is Osip Mandel&soft;&shachek;tam and his lyric somatic reading.
Given that the study of the human body
spans a number of different fields, I will also draw from other areas
of research including anthropology, linguistics, medicine, religion,
fine arts, and psychology. Indeed, it is already evident in this list
of resources how pervasive the influence of the body is on almost
every aspect of human existence.