ESC: English Studies in Canada

S O M A T O T Y P I N G , S C A T O M A N C Y , A N D S O P H I A : T H E R E L A T I O N O F B O D Y A N D S O U L I N T H E N O V E L S O F R O B E R T S O N D A V I E S PATRICIA M O N K Dalhousie University I n The Rebel Angels, Robertson Davies seems at first glance to be preoccu­ pied not (as he has seemed to be for so long) with the analytical psy­ chology of C. G. Jung, but with the constitutional psychology of W. H. Sheldon — in particular with what light Sheldon’s theories about somatotyping shed upon the somatopsychic relationship (the relationship of body and soul). My contention in this paper is that the introduction of the theories of the very un-Jungian Sheldon1 does not represent a completely new departure for Davies, but merely the emergence into the foreground of the longstanding latent idea that the body (the soma), whether as meta­ phor or mask, manifests the soul (the psyche) of the man or woman and acts as a counterbalance to the soul in the formation of the total individual identity, and that the understanding of this is the foundation of wisdom. Davies’ exploration of this idea can be traced in what might be described as embryo form in the Salterton trilogy, and afterwards in the Deptford trilogy in a more developed way. In both trilogies it is subordinated to other interests, but it is finally given separate consideration in The Rebel Angels, where it emerges as the key to and the foundation for a new departure for Davies — a study of the nature of wisdom in terms of the alchemical, Judaeo-Christian and Gnostic tradition of the feminine numen. The precise date of Davies’ first interest in the relationship between body and soul — the somatopsychic relationship — cannot be determined, but it should be remembered that his interest in psychology dates back to his undergraduate days at Queen’s, and consequently, the idea could have emerged at almost any time after his first work with Professor Humphrey.2 Such early references to the somatopsychic relationship as do exist, however, need to be taken into account in any study of the idea in Davies’ later work. As early as 1944, there is an entry in The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks which reveals him reading a book on “ Psycho-Somatic Medicine,” 3 and four years later he wrote the comedy Eros at Breakfast, which is described by its subtitle as “A Psychosomatic Interlude” and takes place in the solar plexus of “ Mr P.S.” whose initials “stand for Psyche and Soma — Soul and Body, E n g l is h S t u d ie s in C a n a d a , x ii, i , March 1986 or Spirit and Flesh — the two substances which make him what he is.” 4 By 1957, however, Davies was already, by the evidence of one of his occasional pieces, thinking about the topic, although he can scarcely be said to be articulating a fully developed philosophical position on it. In the course of a review of Hans Selye’s The Stress of Life, he comments approvingly that Selye “ does make the important point that disease can be somatopsychic as well as psychosomatic . . . that bad use of the body may affect the mind, just as trouble in the mind may beget trouble in the body.” 5 Davies goes on: “Body and mind are a unity, and who dares deny that the entelechy, or the vegetative intelligence, or whatever you choose to call the wisdom of the body, has no influence on the mental capacities or the moral outlook?” Nevertheless, although this comment on Selye’s work is apparently the first and only direct statement of an interest in the somatopsychic relation, the evidence of the Salterton trilogy suggests that Davies may already have had the topic in mind for several years. Although his main preoccupations are...