Abstract
“Write these words:” begins one early modern medical spell, “ ‘Arataly, Rataly, Ataly, Taly, Aly, ly,’ and binde these wordes about the sick mans arme nine dayes, and every day say three pater nosters in worshipp of Saint Peeter and Saint Paul, and then take of that and burn it, and the sick shall bee whole.”1 A combination of prayers and nonsense syllables, oral and written, this formula is typical of a widespread set of magical healing practices. The immense popularity of these spells, or word-medicines, offers a window into early modern beliefs about the effects of language, and the body’s susceptibility to it. Medical spells involve treating words, or even letters and syllables, as physical entities that interact directly with the body, primarily through external application or internal digestion. In doing so, they demonstrate the curiously liminal nature of words: although they derive power from their status as abstract symbols, this power becomes associated with their material form, embodied in physical substances such as ink, paper, and the vaporous particles of breath. Building on recent work on the porousness of the boundary between the body and its physical environment, attention to spells demonstrates the body’s corresponding permeability to its linguistic environment.2
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Notes
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Pollard, T. (2007). Spelling the Body. In: Floyd-Wilson, M., Sullivan, G.A. (eds) Environment and Embodiment in Early Modern England. Early Modern Literature in History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230593022_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230593022_11
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