The perfectible body

In most world religions, the concept of 'physical perfection' would be a contradiction in terms: the physical - the realm of the body - is thought of as by definition imperfect. Yet in Western cultures, from the age of classical Greek sculpture to that of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the pervasive tradition in depicting human or superhuman perfection has been that of a male physique defined primarily by its conspicuous muscularity. The aim of this book is to explore the origins of this Western ideal of physical development and to trace its evolution through the centuries. In so doing, it asks some fundamental questions which have, until now, been generally left unexplored. Why did the West develop a symbolic language of muscularity which in most Eastern civilisations would have been meaningless? How was it that Renaissance Christianity could so readily adopt the pagan bodily ideals of ancient Greece, and by what process did they evolve into the visual language of bodybuilding, hulk calendars and male strippers? The Perfectible Body is written for the intelligent general reader rather than the academic specialist. It is a lay person's introduction to the field of Human Social Anatomy - the analysis of the body in terms of its symbolic or emblematic meanings. Bringing together the insights of art history, theology, cultural studies, ethology and communications theory, it sets out to explore the complex ways in which our society has come to 'read' the physically developed body. In an age when the feminist movement has put the male body under closer public scrutiny than ever before, this book analyses the contemporary re-evaluation of the traditional muscular hero-figure, and asks whether he may well be a dying breed.