SOURCE: Hunt, Maurice. “Dismemberment, Corporal Reconstruction, and the Body Politic in Cymbeline.” Studies in Philology 99, no. 4 (fall 2002): 404-31.

In the following essay, Hunt suggests that Shakespeare's use of corporal metaphors implies that body politics is a core theme in Cymbeline.

Certain verses in Shakespeare's Cymbeline suggest that the early modern religio-political idea of the body politic is relevant for understanding this late tragicomedy.¹ The two distinct strains composing this idea complicate my argument in this essay. The religious component of the body politic motif can be traced to New Testament passages such as Romans 12.1-8 and 1 Corinthians 12.4-13. “For as in one body we have many members,” we read in the former passage, “and all the members do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another” (New Standard Version). Even as each member of the human...