«Shall the Head neuer come to that Nature requireth». Acefalia come simulacro della colpa e del caos nell’Inghilterra della prima età moderna

In four English pamphlets published between 1609 and 1646, acephaly emerges as a simulacrum of guilt: the lack of the head, according to the ideological reading of these publications, becomes a symbol of disorder – physical and metaphysical at the same time – in the private or public sphere, and may therefore be used as an effective means of repression. Headlessness says, in an analogical way, the lack of a guiding principle or the breaking of a hierarchically stable order. In the apocalyptic imagery fostered by the clash of faiths, God watches over order also through the whims of nature: the headless creature makes itself a sign of divine anger and, through a mechanism of similarity between guilt and deformity, a powerful means of social control.