Pamela - Mind And Body Flashcards
“[H]er Person made me her Lover
“[H]er Person made me her Lover; but her Mind made her my Wife.”
- touching on a distinction between the mind and body
- the master’s bodily attraction to Pamela cannot sanction matrimony - he had to read the letters and look into her mind to discover her emotional intelligence and moral authority
Thus foolishly dialogu’d I with my Heart
Thus foolishly dialogu’d I with my Heart; and yet all the time this Heart is Pamela.
Roy Porter?
“Flesh was too often experienced as ugly, nasty and decaying”
18C moved away from this perception of the body, which was seen as corruptible, and focused on an inner essence
Susan Bordo?
Discussed the body as ‘a medium of culture’
Who discussed the idea of psychological sublimation’ ?
What was mean by this?
Roy Porter wrote that the 18th century experienced a process of ‘psychological sublimation’ by which ‘mind was to be cordoned off from body’
“Takes off her artificial hair…”
Which poem is this taken from?
“Takes off her artificial hair: picking out a crystal eye”
Jonathon Swift, ‘A beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed’
‘Artificial hair’ - lack of interest in women’s aesthetic beauty and martial wealth
‘Crystal eye’ - in literature the eye = window to soul - the female subject of Swifts Poem is without soul
“Untwist a wire; and from her gums…”
“Untwist a wire; and from her gums A set of teeth completely comes”
Jonathon Swift
‘Untwist a wire’ - mechanical
Women depicted to be without inner essence
- instead they are constructed upwards from a baseline surface area, without depth or soul
+ the natural body is lacks - it needs supplements and accessories I.e. Artificial hair / wires and instruments
Nancy Armstrong?
Conduct books and novels implied essence of woman lay below the surface - as they are no longer valued for their material wealth
