The anatomy of anatomia

199 Pages·2016·5.8 MB·English

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LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School
2009
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Matthew Scott Landers
Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College
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Landers, Matthew Scott, "The anatomy of anatomia: dissection and the organization of knowledge in
british literature, 1500-1800" (2009). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 1390.
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THE ANATOMY OF ANATOMIA:
DISSECTION AND THE ORGANIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE IN BRITISH LITERATURE,
1500-1800
A Dissertation
Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the
Louisiana State University and
Agricultural and Mechanical College
in partial fi lfi llment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
in
The Department of English
by
Matthew Scott Landers
B.A., University of Dallas, 2002
May 2009
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Because of the sheer scale of my project, it would have been impossible to fi nish this
dissertation without the opportunity to do research at libraries with special collections in the
history of science. I am extremely greatful, as a result, to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation at
the University of Oklahoma for awarding me a fellowship to the History of Science Collections
at Bizzell Library; and to Marilyn Ogilvie and Kerry Magruder for their kind assistance while
there. In addition, I would like to thank the James Smith Noel Collection for awarding me
with two fellowships to conduct research at their immense holdings in Shreveport, Louisiana.
In particular, I would like to thank the Noel Collection’s curator, Robert C. Leitz III, for
his continued support and enthusiasm for my project and career. Without the help of these
collections my dissertation would have been a shadow of its current form.
I would like to acknowledge as well the superior qualities of the individuals who compose my
dissertation committee. Each has added signifcantly to this project in his or her own way. The
director of my dissertation, Kevin L. Cope, is a man of unmatched energy and profound learning.
I have found myself looking to his polymath example countless times as the scope of my subject
threatened to grow beyond my ability to manage. Withhout his aid, both professionally and
personally, this dissertation might have become an albatross.
Elisabeth Oliver has been an endless source of encouragement and professional rigor.
Whether I needed advice about my subject, or I simply needed to talk about job market anxiety,
her door has always been open to me. I cannot thank her enough for showing interest in my ideas
(as malformed as they were at times).
I have only known William Boelhower for three years, but his infl uence on my life and
scholarship will be permanent. Not only is Dr. Boelhower a sage and deeply concerned teacher,
he is one of the kindest people I have ever met. I feel tremendously lucky to have met and
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worked with him these past few years.
Countless people have been generous with their time and energy throughout this process.
In particular, I want to thank George Rousseau, Irwin Primer, David Mazella, Anne Gardiner,
Robert Hamm, Brannon Costello, Dan Novak, Mark Pedreira, Dale Katherine Ireland, Martha
Lawler, Dan Mangiavellano, Joseph Brown and Lisa Moody.
Finally, I would like to thank my family for enduring with me. I could not have fi nished
without their support and understanding. I want to dedicate my dissertation to my mother, father,
wife and two incredible children. It is for them that I have toiled.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
AKNOWLEDGEMENTS...............................................................................................................ii
ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................................................v
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
CHAPTER ONE
THE PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE GREEK AND ARABIC COSMO-
ANATOMICAL TRADITION.......................................................................................................13
CHAPTER TWO
EARLY MODERN DISSECTION AND LITERARY ORGANIZATION: THE ANATOMIES OF
ANDREAS VESALIUS, HELKIAH CROOKE, AND ROBERT BURTON...............................43
CHAPTER THREE
SEMEIOLOGIA AND THE POETICS OF ANATOMY IN JOHN DONNE’S ANATOMY OF
THE WORLD.................................................................................................................................82
CHAPTER FOUR
THE FORENSICS OF NARRATIVE: ANATOMY AND MEMORY RECONSTRUCTION IN
STERNE’S TRISTRAM SHANDY................................................................................................115
CHAPTER FIVE
ANATOMY AND THE ENCYCLOPEDIC PLAN: CHARTING THE “WILDERNESS” OF
KNOWLEDGE............................................................................................................................147
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................178
WORKS CITED..........................................................................................................................184
VITA............................................................................................................................................192
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ABSTRACT
This dissertation develops a conceptual history of human anatomy, both as a discipline and as
an epistemological model. Building on recent scholarship in the history of science, I argue that
the basic organization of anatomical inquiry inspired a number of literary productions during
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This project counters important critical trends of the
last fi ve decades, which have focused on the ambiguous characterization of an anatomical genre
without providing suffi cient medical context. I argue that intellectual history reveals a persistent
epistemological analogy between the body and textual arrangements of human knowledge.
By examining this analogical structure, it is possible to theorize about the components and
requirements of anatomical inquiry.
Chapter One examines the religious and contexts of anatomy in ancient Greece and medieval
Persia and Arabia. In looking at the cosmological doctrines of both societies, I attempt to answer
questions about the absence of human dissection in ancient cultures. In the process I identify an
alternative mode of inquiry, which I call cosmo-anatomy. Chapter Two discusses the infl uence
of Andreas Vesalius’ famous De humani corporis fabrica on the organization of anatomical texts
in seventeenth-century England. I contend that Vesalius’ innovative text sets the stage for both
medical and literary anatomical arrangements, including such works as Robert Burton’s The
Anatomy of Melancholy. Chapter Three discusses the poetic backlash against Copernican physics
in John Donne’s Anatomy of the World. I contend that Donne adapts his ‘anatomy’ to reveal
the fundamental infl uence of traditional cosmologies on the semiotics of metaphysical poetry.
Chapter Four explores the narratological structure of Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy. I
investigate the role of memory reconstruction in shaping Tristram’s autobiography, highlighting,
in the process, the infl uence of Enlightenment theories of the brain on the digressive condition
of Sterne’s narrative. Chapter Five considers the importance of the anatomical analogy on
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philosophical encyclopedias of the eighteenth century. I look as well at Leibniz’s plan for the
universal library, arguing that the structure of anatomy infl uences Enlightenment attempts to
organize vast amounts of information in a meaningful manner.
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INTRODUCTION
Medical tradition records an infl uential meeting between the physician Hippocrates and
Democritus, the fi fth-century Greek philosopher from Abdera. Narrated in a series of eight letters
and arranged like an epistolary novella, the story portrays Democritus fi rst as a man who “has
lost his reason;” who is “constantly wakeful night and day, laughs at everything large and small,
and thinks life in general is worth nothing.” Hippocrates reports the concerns of the Abderites,
who, fearing for the life of their most important citizen and for the health of the city itself, send
for the famed physician in an effort to “heal a city, not just a man” (Hippocrates 57). Hippocrates
arrives in Abdera to fi nd Democritus sitting under a tree next to a stream, “writing something
with inspired intensity” (77). Hippocrates comments on the scene:
He had a papyrus roll on his knees in a very neat manner, and some other book-rolls
were laid out on both sides. And stacked around were a large number of animals,
generally cut up. He sometimes bent and applied himself intensely to writing, sometimes
he sat quietly attentive, pondering within himself. Then after a short time of this activity
he stood up and walked around and examined the entrails of the animals, set them down
and went back and sat down (75).
After being asked about the nature of his examination, Democritus confesses to Hippocrates that
his efforts to dissect animals are motivated by a medical purpose. He is not mad, as the Abderites
suspect; rather, Democritus is “pursuing the nature and location of the gall” in animals with the
hope of completing a treatise on the cause of dementia in men (77-79).
In an alternate account of the meeting,1 Democritus’ treatise examines “the disposition of
the cosmos, about the heavens and about the stars” (93), and not the gall. In both instances,
however, the subject of Democritus’ inquiry is the cause of madness in human beings. As a
result, the “Democritus Letters” seemingly offer two different diagnostic methodologies for the
same problem: a pathological approach on the one hand, and a cosmological on the other. The
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setting for both inquiries appears to be consistent, however: dissected animal carcasses surround
Democritus as he writes.2
The Pseudepigraphic Writings of Hippocrates, of which the “Democritus Letters” are a
small part, have not enjoyed wide circulation over the past century. Wesley D. Smith’s 1990
edition represents only the second translation into English, following Littré’s edition of 1861
(Hippocrates ix). For those conversant with seventeenth-century anatomical texts, however—
Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy in particular—the account of Hippocrates and
Democritus’ meeting is at least familiar (if not the source). The myth fi nds a particularly
receptive audience during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, leading to frequent
reiterations. It is this receptivity and—perhaps more importantly—what it represents from the
standpoint of understanding in general, that makes the ancient narrative worthy of note for the
current investigation.
In the following chapters I will attempt to reconstruct a history of anatomy. Unlike other
histories of the body, however, this account will focus on various intellectual modes throughout
the centuries, the intent of which was to defi ne human structures in relation to the knowable
world, and vice versa. In the process, I will argue that the formulation of anatomy (as an area
of inquiry) led to a number of analogous structures, both in the fi elds of science and literature.
These structures, I contend, exist as a special kind of analogy, best described by Lucien
Goldmann’s meaning of the word ‘homology.’ Homologies, according to Goldmann, describe a
situation in which formal expressions of the “literary plane” emanate from signifi cant structural
relations to certain “aspects of social life” (Goldmann 7). In the case of a “rigorous homology,”
Goldmann writes, “one might speak of one and the same structure manifesting itself on two
different planes,” such that a particular literary form can be seen as “the culmination at a very
advanced level of coherence of tendencies peculiar to the consciousness of a particular group,
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a consciousness that must be conceived as a dynamic reality” (8-9). If one can disentangle the
idea of homologies from Goldmann’s strictly Marxist treatment of the novel, an interesting
rubric emerges, from which one might categorize literary anatomies in a manner previously
unimagined. No longer is it necessary to defi ne literary anatomies—such as Burton’s Anatomy
of Melancholy—as mere refl ections, or imitations of a scientifi c counterpart. Rather, one can
begin to make the case that the ‘anatomy’ evidences a dynamic reality, from which particular
structures emerge as reifi cations of conscious attitudes toward the world and the organization of
knowledge.
Perhaps it is important here to attempt to defi ne anatomy. The OED suggests three general
senses of the word: “I. The process, subjects, and products of dissection of the body;” “II.
The science of bodily structure; structure as discovered by dissection;” and “III. Tropical,”
or related to the divisions of logic.3 In general, previous attempts to historicize anatomical
practices have been limited to one or (at the most) two of these meanings. There have been a
number of very helpful examinations of anatomical dissection in recent years. Jonathan Sawday,
Andrew Cunningham, and Andrea Carlino each examine the cultural and religious contexts of
human dissection during the Renaissance in Europe. Added to these studies are innumerable
examinations by scholars of the History of Science, including the more famous examples by
Charles Singer and Roy Porter.
Cunningham’s book, The Anatomical Renaissance, comes closest to reuniting the three
historical senses of anatomy. The methodological course of his investigation—which he
describes as “a history of projects of inquiry,” or a history of the “approaches different people
at different times took to investigating anatomy, and why” (Cunningham x)—is a crucial
element of his success. In adopting the “project” as his locus, Cunningham frees himself from
the bewildering minutiae of medical history, which fl ow from a desire to record every minor
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