Output details
29 - English Language and Literature
Goldsmiths' College
Le corps éclaté du roi, ou l'entrée dans la ville sous Louis XIII
This paper discusses the representation of the king’s body in early-seventeenth-century France. In particular it aims to show how, in ceremonial entries, the king’s body became diffracted and demultiplied into a variety of bodies, an ‘organic’ body concealed beneath a ‘royal’ body decked out in white satin, a ‘political’ body visible both through the insignia of power carried in front of the king and the presence of representatives of the constitutional bodies, and finally an ‘imaginary’ body, which embodied the monarch’s thirst for power and prestige. The king was a rex performans and the ceremonial entry turned out to be the ideal locus for the royal performance.