As the referent of the individual, the body functions as a site of contradiction, resistance and reaffirmation. It embodies a set of rules that delineate individual space through the exclusion of what is not self. In Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, corporeality problematizes the relationships between the self and its signifiers. While it has been proposed that mind is above matter, the body generates a real opposition to the expression of genius. An entity based on the premise of finiteness, the body delimits aspirations towards the infinite. Like the episodes of Werther's sketches, the bounded space of the individual body resists the lawless space of the sovereign genius. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Werther's sketch serves as a preliminary study for the alternate reality he imagines. The “dark eyes” (Goethe 14) that Werther gives to the older boy are the same “dark eyes” (Goethe 25) that he gives to Charlotte1. Eyes that can merge from one body to another presuppose a fluid nature of reality2. Fluidity characterizes Werther's selection of subjects, bridging the gap between him and the world. “I have included the nearest fence, a stable door, and some broken wagon wheels,” he notes, “just as they came into view” (Goethe 14). Instead of actively selecting the subject, Werther draws objects as they flow into his field of vision. He paints outdoors to minimize barriers between himself and nature. The continuity that objects experience as they flow from the outside world in Werther's sketch implies a confluence of external and personal space. At the same time, Werther perceives his body as an obstacle to the fusion of the individual and the external into a single entity. Like the sand that prevents him from drinking in Charlotte's letter (Goethe 50), Werther's body reminds him of his individuality and his essential separation from the outside world. Decorporealization, the breaking down of the evil of the body, therefore proves necessary in Werther's construction of a fluid reality. Declaring that “nature alone forms the great artist” (Goethe 14) Werther excludes his body from the process of creation. Denying his own action, he emphasizes that only "by chance" (Goethe 13) does he find the two boys in the square and that it is only "without adding the slightest invention... [his]" (Goethe 14) that he completes the drawing. By reducing the artist to a medium of nature, Werther presupposes self-destruction as a necessary counterbalance to the self-creation of genius. Wanting to dissolve and disseminate itself in the reality of the world, Werther's yearning is profane, because it challenges the omnipotence of God. God can be everywhere at the same time only because he does not have a body that localizes his being. Corporeality makes the individual, binding his existence to a finite locality. Sensing the finiteness imposed by his body, Werther reflects: "What is man, that famous demigod... is he not... retained and returned to the dull and cold consciousness at the very moment in which he desires to lose himself in fullness? " of infinity?" (Goethe 124-125). Werther seeks to dissolve his body as a gesture towards limitlessness. His narcissism is so great that he aspires to the omnipotence of God4; for Werther, genius means being nothing less than a Creator incorporeal and unlimited5. As he states: "That the life of man is nothing but a dream is a thought that has occurred to many people, and I myself am constantly haunted by it" (Goethe 11). creator of his own "dream". The finiteness of the body poses a problem to the genius..