For other uses, see Body politic (disambiguation).
The frontispiece of Hobbes's Leviathan shows a body formed of multitudinous citizens, surmounted by a king's head.[1]
The body politic is a polity—such as a city, realm, or state—considered metaphorically as a physical body. Historically, the sovereign is typically portrayed as the body's head, and the analogy may also be extended to other anatomical parts, as in political readings of Aesop's fable of "The Belly and the Members". The image originates in ancient Greek philosophy, beginning in the 6th century BC, and was later extended in Roman philosophy. Following the high and late medieval revival of the Byzantine Corpus Juris Civilis in Latin Europe, the "body politic" took on a jurisprudential significance by being identified with the legal theory of the corporation, gaining salience in political thought from the 13th century on. In English law the image of the body politic developed into the theory of the king's two bodies and the Crown as corporation sole.
The metaphor was elaborated further from the Renaissance on, as medical knowledge based on Galen was challenged by thinkers such as William Harvey. Analogies were drawn between supposed causes of disease and disorder and their equivalents in the political field, viewed as plagues or infections that might be remedied with purges and nostrums.[2] The 17th century writings of Thomas Hobbes developed the image of the body politic into a modern theory of the state as an artificial person. Parallel terms deriving from the Latin corpus politicum exist in other European languages.
^Kenneth Olwig (2002), Landscape, nature, and the body politic, University of Wisconsin Press, p. 87, ISBN 978-0-299-17424-8, The frontispiece to Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan ... is a particularly famous example of the depiction of the body politic ...
^Jonathan Harris (1998), Foreign bodies and the body politic: discourses of social pathology in early modern England, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-0-521-59405-9
The bodypolitic is a polity—such as a city, realm, or state—considered metaphorically as a physical body. Historically, the sovereign is typically portrayed...
The BodyPolitic was a Canadian monthly magazine, which was published from 1971 to 1987. It was one of Canada's first significant gay publications, and...
long-in-the-works drama about a group of young Washington, D.C. staffers titled BodyPolitic. The project was originally sold to The WB back in November 2005 by ABC...
deFiebre, Conrad. "Using body language, Ventura backs Kerry". Star Tribune October 23, 2004: 1A+. Kahn, Joseph P. "The BodyPolitic". The Boston Globe February...
certain legal system Bodypolitic, metaphor in which a nation is considered to be a corporate entity, being likened to a human body An HTML element that...
Ideas – analogy of the bodypolitic (elaboration of correspondences between society or the state and the individual human body) Polity at the Encyclopædia...
research articles and seven monographs. Her books include AIDS and the BodyPolitic: Biomedicine and Sexual Difference (1996), Tissue Economies: Blood, Organs...
hockey/lacrosse tour of Australia and Japan in 1998. In his first crime novel, BodyPolitic, published in 1997, featuring detective Quintilian Dalrymple and set...
Illusions (1995), film directed by Clive Barker Novelette "The BodyPolitic": "The BodyPolitic", first story of the TV movie Quicksilver Highway (1997) directed...
Christianity to call themselves part of the "Body of Christ." Blood of Christ Bride of Christ Sacramental bread Bodypolitic Mystici corporis Christi, a papal encyclical...
recurring role of the demon Nina. Earlier the same year she was cast on BodyPolitic, a well-received CW pilot that was not picked up to series, playing the...
refers to an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a bodypolitic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the...
"sovereignty", "national identity, essence and character", "national polity; bodypolitic; national entity; basis for the Emperor's sovereignty; Japanese constitution"...
phenomenon is fully explored in Hunt, Lynn, ed. (1990). Eroticism and the BodyPolitic. The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0801840272. and Thomas...
2008, Kelly had been cast as the protagonist in The CW pilot series BodyPolitic. She played the role of Francesca "Frankie" Foster, who moves to Washington...
directed by Mick Garris. It is based on Clive Barker's short story "The BodyPolitic" and Stephen King's 1992 short story "Chattery Teeth". The film was originally...
"Men Loving Boys Loving Men" (1977), published in the now-defunct The BodyPolitic. Hannon was acquitted of obscenity charges laid in connection with the...
CSI: Miami as Anthony Green. Green was cast in The CW's new drama pilot BodyPolitic, along with Minka Kelly, Gabrielle Union, and Jason Dohring. The series...
Heart "The BodyPolitic", first story of the TV movie Quicksilver Highway (1997) directed by Mick Garris, based on novelette "The BodyPolitic" Candyman...
InterTradeIreland, the Special European Union Programmes Body, the North/South Language Body and the Foyle, Carlingford and Irish Lights Commission. The...
Socialism Third Way Concepts Balance of power Bellum omnium contra omnes Bodypolitic Clash of civilizations Common good Consent of the governed Divine right...
criticized Janov's ideas about homosexuality in the gay magazine The BodyPolitic, noting that clinical studies contradicted Janov's view that girls become...
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