Shakespeare’s Henriad depicts the conception and subsequent exertion of the King’s divinity and his divine right to kingship. This divine right was a product of the King’s two bodies: one ‘politic’ and one ‘natural’. The ‘body politic’ was immortal and governed the land in all facets, but necessitated a physical form to exercise its sovereignty over the nation. The King’s second body, the ‘body natural’, was the physical man who was riddled with infirmities and whose mortality condemned him to eventual and inescapable death. It is this body’s weakness which haunts the kings all throughout the Henriad.
These divine rulers’ fears pertaining to the fragility of their physical form in contrast to the omnipotence of the ‘body politic’, are emblematic of the complex relationship which exists between body and state. When the intangible and the metaphysical begin to encroach upon the concrete realm, one must question and dissect the rapport which exists between these two entities. Do laws controlling one’s physical behaviour signal the dispossession of man’s physical form via the state? Does the legal dictation of physical appearance allude to the partial loss of autonomy over one’s physical form? Perhaps Shakespeare’s Henriad and its questioning of the king’s two bodies emblematises the war which has been declared on the ‘body natural’ of today.
The historic reversal of ‘Roe v Wade’ in 2022 means that there is now no longer a constitutional right to abortion in the United States. It was written that “from the very moment of fertilisation, a woman has no rights to speak of,” and that, under state restrictions, “a woman must bear her rapist’s child or a young girl her father’s”.This ruling was an outstanding and overwhelmingly outrageous attack on bodily autonomy and makes one question to what extent the state can exercise its right over the ‘body natural’. Alike to the kings of Shakespeare’s Henriad, who fretted about the magnitude of their infirmities in the face of the supreme ‘body politic’, citizens of today may also raise the question: to what extent is one’s own physical form at the mercy of the state? It appears that, in this day and age, the ‘body politic’ is no longer an extension of the ‘body natural’. The physical form finds itself at the mercy of the state’s caprices.
Contradictorily, it is evidenced that the body politic can champion the ‘body natural’ as much as it is capable of disempowering it. Recently, a law was passed in New York City which protects artists against weight and height discrimination, proving most relevant in the realms of modelling and dance. The passing of this law was a significant contribution towards the idea that “no matter your size, you should have a fair shot at becoming a dancer,” (Shane Abrieu, New York City councilman). Michigan, Washington State, Washington D.C. and San Francisco passed laws banning size discrimination in recent years, and New Jersey and Massachusetts are considering similar measures. A relevant question to pose, however, is that when it is the physical form which is being sold as a commodity, what constitutes body discrimination?
Dispossession and perhaps even disenfranchisement from one’s own physical form has been a relevant subject matter for decades and its pertinence manifests itself in several different ways. The question of the body and its ownership, as well as the dictation of its abilities, requires further dissection. The body is an integral part of one’s own selfhood and to manipulate it is to undermine one’s own relationship with the self. Selfhood, however, is not only defined by the body, but also the mind; thus, once again, it is a question of exploring the rapport between the hypothetical and tangible realm. How does the loss of corporal autonomy, whilst still in possession of one’s own intellectual faculties, manifest itself? What does this loss signify? Whether it is the mind and the body, the state and the corps, or the ‘body natural’ and the ‘body politic’, the intangible realm’s relationship with concrete reality must be acknowledged, observed and analysed. However, the irony of this venture is that the explanation of such a subject matter is an intellectual one and thus an intangible process in and of itself. It is possible that the relationship between these two realms is depictive of one topic in particular: power. Power, and the many manners in which it manifests itself and can be exercised.
The significance of the body is often undermined, or at the very least not fully acknowledged. The body’s importance evidences itself in its appearance, its capabilities and its functions. It is the flesh that houses the mind, and it is the vehicle through which the propagation of selfhood is carried out. Power, dictation, autonomy, independence and freedom are all enacted via the physical form and thus display the significance of the ‘natural body’, independent of all else.
Shakespeare’s own corpus of work, the Henriad, obtains its own physical body: an emblem of how it is power’s physical manifestation, above all else, which enables its full exertion.