How did the heart-and-brain dichotomy emerge?
Is it older than the Christian dichotomy of body-and-soul? Or is it just the folkish interpretation of Cartesian dualism?
Is this split a strictly Western phenomenon, possibly being derived from the Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy?
![Egyptian_-_A_Complete_Set_of_Canopic_Jars_-_Walters_41171,_41172,_41173,_41174_-_Group[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/D6R0RkQ.jpg "Egyptian_-_A_Complete_Set_of_Canopic_Jars_-_Walters_41171,_41172,_41173,_41174_-_Group[1].jpg")
I would say that having certain body parts represent facets of character is certainly older than Christianity and maybe stems from prehistoric conception of limbs, hair, teeth, eyes etc that could be lost without dying. This shows the "person" is somehow different from their body parts. Perhaps this is why after death, mankind believed that some part of them remained a a ghost or spirit or star that watched from above. Being able to rationalize the memory of the living person with the dead (soon to be buried) body somehow.
>>1412519
>Is it older than the Christian dichotomy of body-and-soul?
Well, considering that the brain wasn't even recognized to be an organ governing behavior until the middle ages, predating Christianity couldn't be possible. The Egyptians and other peoples of antiquity (like the Aztecs) reasonably believed the heart was the seat of the personality, as we think of the brain now, because it was the only organ which moved when separated from the body, and thus clearly imbued with the essential living qualities of the animated man.
Though, I'm skeptical that the specific "heart-and-brain" dichotomy is as prominent as you might think, since the Wizard of Oz is using them not literally but as irrational passion and rational order, so closer then to the usage of the dionysian and apollonian. You could, if examining the Wizard of Oz specifically, substantiate this with how the scarecrow is closer to a cthonic, organic character made of entirely biological parts (straw and fiber) with stake in the earth (literally), and the inverse of the Tin Man, who is an inorganic (made of tin) woodsman carrying an axe, opposed to nature.
If you REALLY want to be Academic you could stretch his occupation as a woodsman into the archetypal opposition to the irrational, organic world represented by the tree, a phallic symbol...
Holy shit it's a sunny summer day and I'm writing an obtuse essay about the fucking wizard of oz on a mongolian puppetry board, I need to go outside
>>1412558
Well to be fair, considerations like that are critical when constructing deliberate and effective alegorical fiction, so those are perfectly valid analysis, 2bqhwUf
