The Eighteenth-Century Body

The papers collected in this volume are selected from the proceedings of a conference held at St Hilda's College, Oxford, in 2001. The eighteenth century - an age of empiricism - saw understanding the body as central to the science of man. In medicine, literature and the arts the theme of corporeality focused debates about correct human responses, expressing emotion, representing beauty and cultivating relationships. These papers set out to examine how the body came to the fore as communicative medium, hygienic complex and object of artistic as well as scientific investigation and literary presentation.