The Disembodied Rebels: Psychic Origins of Rebellion in Absalom and Achitophel

T h e D ise m b o d ie d R e b e ls:onmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA P sy c h ic O rig in s o f R e b e llio n in Absalom and Achitophel ANNE T. BARBEAN The rebels in A b sa lo m a n d A ch ito p h el share a contempt for the laws regarding the bodily succession of monarchs, as well as for the cove* nants transmitted from generation to generation in their land. Dryden, on the other hand, suggests that the true succession and the inherited covenants are the Ark of government, the divinely sanc­ tioned foundation of the building. Although this building may occa­ sionally be in need of patching and buttressing, that is, of external re­ pairs, its foundation, according to Dryden, must never be tampered with. Since the rebels are indeed striking at the Ark, Dryden sees their act as an impiety and an apostasy both: it is an offense against God and their ancestors and also a withdrawal from their real, his­ torically given situation. The rebels are turning away from the provi­ dential setting to the ta b u la ra sa of their own minds, their public apostasy seeming to have been preceded by a private one, as revealed in their peculiar trait of disembodiment. For the rebels have undone the subtle knot of soul and flesh that made them human; they have dissociated themselves from the bonds 489 490 / ZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA A N N E T . B A R B E A U and obligations arising from their physical nature, a nature which, though they despise it, would have curbed their unruly spirits. Dryden shows their aspiring wills m akingtheir own bodies the first victim s,then m ovingon to prey on the body of the nation, on its in­ herited laws and traditions. Such a powerful curb on the will does Dryden conceive the body to be that the last part of Absalom to re­ sist betraying his father is the physical: “For Royal Blood within him struggled still.”1 His mind has more quickly soared above the obliga­ tions of a subject and a son. To give free rein to their minds, the rebels either deny or give scant attention to such basic relationships as those of mind and body, of parent and child, of husband and wife. Absalom disclaims his mother to be rid of the “mean Descent” that clogs his lofty “Mind,” “large Soul,” and “mounting Spirit” (364-67). Likewise, AchitopheFs mind seems to be cut loose from his body once he has fretted that body “to decay” with excessive mental activity; so absorbed is he in the “hudled Notions” of his soul that he neglects his wife, the one with whom he is one flesh; hence, when he ought to concentrate on procreation, he is distracted by stratagems and so begets something less than a son, a “shapeless Lump, like Anarchy” (172). Caught up, too with the desire to “boast his Wit” (162), Achitophel drives the ship of state into peril, breaking a triple alliance, and so endangering future gener­ ations as well as his contemporaries. A third upper-class rebel provides a variation on this theme of disembodiment, for Zimri is more obvi­ ously absurd in his excess of mental activity; he impoverishes his family and his posterity for the sake of “his Jest” (562). The braininess of the high-born rebels is related to the unbounded private spirit of the low-born ones in that all are apostates who deny or reject the providentially given bodily limits as well as political or historical limits. The Zealot Shimei denies his body food and rest for the sake of two perverse, seemingly spiritual passions, a “pious Hate/Against his Master” (593-94), and a love of money, a heaping of treasure that never leads to sense gratification. Corah, too, refuses to recognize the bodily given; his life is a mock-miraculous legend, with “Visionary flights” and mysterious absences: “The Spirit caught him up, the Lord knows where” (657). Because of the way he con­ P sych ic O rig in s o f R eb ellio n...