This book explores the body's physical limits and the ways in which the confines of the body are delineated, transgressed, or controlled in literary and philosophical texts. Drawing on classics, philosophy, religious studies, medieval studies, and critical theory and examining material ranging from Homer to Game of Thrones, this volume facilitates an interdisciplinary investigation into how the boundaries of the body define the human form in language. This volume's essays suggest that the body's meaning is perhaps never more evident than in the violation of its wholeness. The boundaries of the body are areas of transition between states and are therefore vulnerable. As individuals find themselves isolated from their world and one another, their bodies regularly allow for physical interactions, incur transgressions and violations, and undergo profound transformations. Thus sympathy, sexuality, disease, and violence are among the main themes of the volume, which, ultimately, reexamines the place of the body in our understanding of what it means to be human.

Since Friedrich Schleiermacher s work in the 1800s, scholars interested in the literary dimension of Plato s writings have sought to reconcile the dialogue form with the expository imperative of philosophical argument. It is now common for mainstream classicists and philosophers to attribute vital importance to literary form in Plato, which they often explain in terms of rhetorical devices serving didactic goals. This study brings the disciplines of literary and classical studies into methodological debate, questioning modern views of Plato s dialogue form.

In the first part of this book, David Schur argues that the literary features of Plato s dialogues when treated as "literary cannot be limited to a single argumentative agenda. In the second part, he demonstrates the validity of this point by considering a rhetorical pattern of self-reflection that is prominent in the Republic." He emphasizes that Plato s book consistently undermines the goal-driven conversation that it portrays. Offering a thought-provoking blend of methodological investigation and methodical close reading, Schur suggests that the Republic" qualifies the authority of its conclusions by displaying a strong countercurrent of ongoing movement."

This book explores the body's physical limits and the ways in which the confines of the body are delineated, transgressed, or controlled in literary and philosophical texts. Drawing on classics, philosophy, religious studies, medieval studies, and critical theory and examining material ranging from Homer to Game of Thrones, this volume facilitates an interdisciplinary investigation into how the boundaries of the body define the human form in language. This volume's essays suggest that the body's meaning is perhaps never more evident than in the violation of its wholeness. The boundaries of the body are areas of transition between states and are therefore vulnerable. As individuals find themselves isolated from their world and one another, their bodies regularly allow for physical interactions, incur transgressions and violations, and undergo profound transformations. Thus sympathy, sexuality, disease, and violence are among the main themes of the volume, which, ultimately, reexamines the place of the body in our understanding of what it means to be human.