New Year’s Day is the eighth day of Christmas, and so it marks the Feast of the Circumcision, the anniversary of Christ’s bris.

In general, Christians no longer celebrate Christ’s Circumcision. But it was an important holiday for most of Christian history.

So, today is a perfect day for me to launch this blog, which I’ll be using to share tidbits from my dissertation project.

My dissertation treats literary theories of the foreskin. I’m investigating how writers conceptualize literature in terms of circumcision and uncircumcision.

For a first post, here’s an excerpt from George Herbert’s “The Circumcision, or New-Year’s Day.” In this stanza, Herbert asks why God would subject the Christ child to the pain of the circumcision. Note the textual figures:

Is it to antedate thy death? To indite

Thy condemnation himself, and write

The copy with thy blood,

Since nothing is so good?

Or, is’t by this experiment to try,

Whether thou beest born mortal, and canst die?

Herbert suggests that the Circumcision is a writerly act. God uses the Child’s member as a pen, its tip dipped in blood, to “indite” the Crucifixion and “write” its “copy.” As Herbert goes on to say, “Thy Circumcision writ thy death in blood.” For Herbert, the Circumcision is a moment of literary creation.

You can see the rest of the poem here. And stay tuned for more!