MY STYLE REVISITED: INJURIES

A few words about epic grotesque anatomy. The ancient and medieval epics and the roman de chevalerie did not ignore the grotesque concept of the body. Images of dismemberment and detailed anatomic descriptions of wounds and deaths became de rigueur in these epics influenced by Homer and Virgil (and later writers like Ovid).
Ronsard writes in his preface to La Franciade, "If you wish a soldier or an officer to die on the battlefield, he must be smitten at the most sensitive part of his body and you must be a good anatomist to draw such a picture."