A HISTORICAL STUDY ON THE FUNCTION OF THE BODILY REPRESENTATIONS IN ENGLISH LITERATURE

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Our research is mainly conducted around the following two problematics.(1) The concept of control/government in the bodily representations.(2) The problem of representation ability in the bodily representations.(1) The body consists of various members/organs, and specific research can be and has indeed been be made on each of these individual members/organs. But our main concern is with the representation of the principle with which to control them. There has been, for instance, a strong tradition of conceiving reason as governing the body, and the vehicle of this conception could be the heart, the belly, or the brain. According to the bodily place where the governing principle of reason is situated, the whole conception and structure of the bodily representation will duly alter. In general, perhaps due to the human habit of walking upright, the more upward the rational governing principle is situated, the less bodily the whole representation becomes. Specific research has therefore been done centering around the representation of "the belly-centralism." In terms of body politic, it presents itself as "republicanism."(2) In the representations of the body, it is most difficult to deal with the problem of the subject by which is represented the body. It is generally held that what represents the body is the mind, but how and in what way can the latter have anything to do with the former? From the monistic standpoint Spinoza says, "the object of the mind is the body," but in this case the mind is either situated in or connected some way or another with the body. The representational structure in this instance is very interesting, but at the same time very difficult to vidualize. In case of dualism, the connecting link is to be sought in "the pineal gland," but the problem immediately arises as to the subject that represents the pineal gland. In the final analysis, the problem remains as to how to deal in representation with the Other of the body.