Interpretation Of Body Signs In William Shakespeare

Shakespeare is known as the most important playwright and poet in British literature. His works depict the truth of British society during the period of Renaissance. With the rapid development of the body study in the European and American academia, people begin to completely review or collect certain phenomena or problems from the perspective of body, which provides a new approach for scholars to research William Shakespeare’s works. Throughout William Shakespeare’s works academic researching history, at present, few people systematically analyze the body and the implications of the body by adopting the body theory.Based on the body theory and William Shakespeare’s seven works, this paper will analyze Shakespeare’s unique body poetic view in detail from politics, ethics, religion, philosophy and aesthetics. He makes a breakthrough in the traditional view of body, reveals mysterious aspects of body, affirms the value of the body and praises beauty, goodness and truth of the body. All of these give hope to people who are living in a dilemma and open the gate of the carnival of the body.This paper mainly studies the body sign in William Shakespeare’s works from five aspects. In the political games, the vitality of the body has become the unique standard to measure the power value;female’s body is considered as the moral sign and marked with moral stigma in moral system; in religious struggles, the essence of the fight between different bodies is the conflict of various religions and the perfect female’s body is regarded as a vehicle to present religious doctrines; in the field of philosophy, William Shakespeare breaks the bondage of dualism and focuses on the importance of the body and its wealth, which shows his unique philosophic view of the body; in the view of aesthetics, William Shakespeare stresses that the beauty of female is the combination of beauty of reason and sense, and the body can inherit human’s wisdom, beauty, faith and creativity through getting pregnant that highlights powerful rebirth of the body.Through multiple interpretations of the body sign, it is easy to find that Shakespeare emphasizes the body and connotations of the body. In the twenty-first century, people pay greater attention to the body, thus focusing on the body as well as its related aspects is the requirement of this age. From this perspective, the researches on the body sign in William Shakespeare’s works have profound significance and enlightenment function to the study of the body and the body theory.