Weaving the body into text. The issue of corporeality in Ilse Garnier’s Blason du corps féminin

Abstract

The article analyses a variety of bundles of body and text in the volume Blason du corps féminin by the French spatial poet Ilse Garnier, considering social functions of the body presented in her works. Juxtaposing Garnier’s output with the theories of Lynda Nead and Maria Poprzęcka, the author outlines the potential of Blason… as a collection of logovisual female nudes. The problematic status of Pierre Garnier’s introduction to his wife’s volume has also been addressed in the context of the postulated reclaiming of the genre for women and sexualization of the text. The article ends with a reflection, inspired by Walter J. Ong, concerning the degree to which a reprinted collection can still be considered a drawn-written and corporeal text.